The Art of Living
by justayellowumbrella
Summary: "Finch? Ever think about, just... sailing away?" Sometimes there's more to life than just surviving. Post-Return 0 fix-it (Reese lives).
1. Chapter 1

_Present_

JOHN:

It smells in the heat, a burning, sooty stench. Smoldering bodies. He remembers using some of them for cover, to keep from being found.

They kick his ribs, the back of his head. The voices are angry and loud, the words guttural. There's laughing too; one of the men grabs his right arm and yanks it to an awkward angle behind his back. This is fun for them, a game: let's teach the American kid why he shouldn't mess with us.

He curls in on himself, unable to stop a desperate gasp for air. There's sand in his mouth, his nose. He rolls, throwing an arm over his head, protecting his skull. Angry, foreign words are muffled above.

 _You gotta disconnect_ , he tells himself. _Let it go._

There was a sergeant that used to tell him that, back when he was a PFC. Looking younger than he was, younger than he felt _._ Prone to fights and quick to temper.

Reese braces. He hears the gravel under steel-toed boots.

 _C'mon, Johnny._

He keeps his eyes shut, he works his jaw.

 _You gotta disconnect_.

* * *

 _2011_

He hears the gate lift, its rattle and clank.

Footsteps. The uneven echo of shoes on marble.

There's a pause that follows, a hitch in the halted gait, and Reese keeps his eyes on a folded newspaper. A partially filled crossword.

"Finch."

"Mr. Reese."

Reese can picture the frown that would accompany the flat greeting. The disapproving stare. He's early, and he is sitting in Finch's chair. While he hasn't been instructed not to do so, he gets the distinct impression the other man doesn't like it.

"A common falcon," he reads aloud. "Nine letters."

He's thinking _partridge_. He taps a pen on the desk with his left-hand. Keeps the right loosely cupped around a near-empty coffee. That hand trembles, just slightly-it's been three days since he's last had a drink-and he lowers it to his lap.

He turns his head. Finch's suit is bold again today: a paisley patterned tie, striped shirt and textured vest. An orange pocket square. The bright choice of threads doesn't match the reserved, tight lipped stare of the man wearing them.

Reese waits, holds the gaze with practiced ease as Finch looks him over. For defects, dress-code, posture; he doesn't know. Finch has mastered the art of looking unimpressed, Reese will give him that.

He blinks only when the other man takes a limping step forward.

A stack of paper drops onto the desk. Reese eyes the pages but can't make much of their print: it looks like code, but, maybe not. He pulls out some names from the lines. Tapping his pen, leaning forward slightly.

A throat clears.

When he looks up, Finch arches an eyebrow. The gaze behind the dark framed glasses is unblinking.

"Partridge?" Reese offers. He voices his guess with a lazy swivel of the chair.

Finch squints at him. He moves to the other room, but Reese hears the word, "Peregrine," distinctly uttered from behind the wall.

Reese swivels back to the desk and looks down at the puzzle. A tiny smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.

 _Peregrine_ it is.

He pens it in.

"That could be a new one," he says when Finch returns. He keeps his eyes on the puzzle.

Twenty-three down. _Bauxite or magnetite_.

"A new what, Mr. Reese?"

"Alias..." Reese pens in _ore_ and looks up as he pivots in the chair again. Giving his employer an amused smile, he adopts a teasing lilt. "All your aliases are birds, Harold."

Finch's mouth flattens into a small frown.

"Harold Peregrine." Reese enunciates carefully, like he's trying it out on the tongue, and Finch sends him a look, mildly reproving.

In the past week he'd uncovered three addresses appearing to belong to Harold Finch, each under a different feathered pseudonym: Swift, Robin, Wren.

While he'd considered this a win, the actual residences revealed nothing (other than there was more to Harold than Finch). The man was, just as he'd promised, a very private person.

"Has a ring to it, Finch," he says, and Finch, still frowning, does an exaggerated shoo-ing motion with his hands.

Reese relinquishes the chair, taking his coffee with him.

He leaves the crossword.

Finch sits. He turns his attention to his desk. Adjusting the keyboard, the mouse. He examines the penned-in crossword for a moment, then brings his gaze back to Reese. "Done with games?" he asks. There's a hint of testiness in his tone.

Reese just smiles. He takes a sip of lukewarm coffee.

"Robert Frank," Finch says. His voice is clipped. Purely business. "New number."

* * *

 _Present_

HAROLD:

He wakes to a bright light, a rhythmic beeping.

He lays there a moment. It's delayed, the sudden burst of panic. But it comes, soon enough: the racing heart, the difficulty breathing. He's suffocating.

He rips at the mask on his face, one-handed. One of his arms is caught, shackled to the hospital bed. A pain floods through him.

He glances down, wonders what's hidden beneath the knitted hospital blanket.

He tries to remember.

The ferry.

 _Nathan_ -

No.

It hits him like a truck, and he rolls his head back, closing his eyes.

No.

 _John_.

The pain that comes then, it's worse.

It crushes him.

"Hi there," comes a soft voice. A hand on his arm.

He squints at the blurry figure, taking shallow breaths. Focusing on their face. Unable to fill the hollow cavity that is his chest.

"Hello," he says, voice hoarse from disuse.

Even breathing hurts.

"Was wondering when you'd be back with us."

He stares at her outline. _I'm sorry_ , he wants to say, _but I'm not. You're mistaken. This is all a horrible dream._

"How's your pain?"

He closes his eyes. On a scale of one to _I'd rather be dead_ , he would go with the latter. But it's not the physical pain. He prefers the corporal ache to this: the cold, unforgiving weight of the afterlife. The burden of consequence.

"Fine," he says finally. He opens his eyes and the nurse gazes back at him with a soft expression.

"There's some men here," she says quietly. "They have some questions."

He presses his mouth into a weak impression of a smile.

"I'll hold them off," she says. "A little longer."

He nods.

* * *

 _2011_

They barely save her, number seventeen, the last in a string of endangered women.

It's back and forth, what to do. When to do it. He says right, Reese goes left. Stay, and Reese leaves.

Finch frowns in the solitude of the library; he sends an annoyed look to the glass board before the window, the series of photos from the course of the week.

And then, like that, it's over. She's safe. A quick exchange, an impassive _back in twenty_ , and radio silence.

Finch doesn't know what to make of that; he calls, three times, checks the last known blip of the GPS.

Twice.

And then a third time.

He taps idle fingers on his keyboard's edge.

He turns to programming.

When Reese returns, it's late. Finch squints at the familiar figure in the dim glow of the library's auxiliary lighting. The ex-op moves slowly; his eyes sweep the expanse of the room.

"Harold."

Finch allows a brief stare, then steers his gaze back to the computer screen. _I thought you weren't coming back_ , he wants to say.

Instead: "That was a long twenty minutes."

"Sorry," Reese offers. He's standing by the file cabinet, strangely still.

There's a pause.

"I just…" The words trail off. Sounding loose. "Yeah."

Finch tilts his head. Something's there, in the tone. The out of place _sorry_. He turns from the workstation and studies the figure more carefully.

"It's late, Mr. Reese."

Reese is silently rummaging in the top drawer of the cabinet. No response, no tongue-in-cheek reply. His stance wavers.

Finch feels a flutter in his stomach.

"Mr. Reese?"

Reese turns then and lets go of the cabinet, his jacket falling open. A flash of a crimson-stained shirt, a palm held to it.

" _Reese_."

"It's fine-"

By the time Finch reaches him, Reese is on his knees.

"It's fine," he repeats firmly. A side eye to Finch. Raising a bloody hand. _Don't._

Finch frowns. He feels a little faint, but holds his composure. He keeps his voice even. It comes out sounding sharp, a reprimand. "It doesn't look fine."

He should have taken first aid, he thinks.

Did they cover this in first aid?

"Just needed to sit." Reese manages a wolfish smile from the floor as Finch stares and adds, "Maybe a stitch or two."

Finch's frown deepens. He gives a slight shake of his head.

Reese is breathing slowly. In and out. "Actually," he says. There's a pause. "Since you _are_ here-" He ignores Finch's, _Where else would I be_ , look. "-can you hand me, the first aid kit?"

Finch shifts his feet. A hospital would be the better option. His eyes dart from the file cabinet, to Reese, back to the workstation. He could use Reese's identity from the case-

"Harold," Reese says softly. A longer pause. For measured breathing. "It's fine." He shifts back, coming to an awkward sitting position. He's bleeding on an area rug. "Believe me, this is simple."

"Simple," Finch repeats. Raising his eyebrows.

"Finch."

Still considering the options, he moves to the cabinet. An awkward sidestep.

"Suture kit." The voice from the floor is soft. Even-toned.

Finch spares him a glance, another awkward shift of his body. He retrieves the requested item from the drawer.

He stares at Reese a moment and then kneels beside him stiffly. Back rigid, hiding a grimace.

Reese gives him an odd look.

"What," Finch says. He gives the younger man a stern frown, not appreciating the insinuation in Reese's expression. "I'm handi- _capable_ , thank you."

Reese doesn't respond. He's shrugging off the suit jacket. Unbuttoning his shirt with one bloodied hand, holding out the other. "Here," he says.

It's uncommon to be this close, and Finch notes the aftermath of the last few numbers in Reese's features: the fading bruise along his right cheekbone, another shadowing a laceration at his hairline.

The now revealed bloodied torso.

He swallows.

"Here," Reese repeats. "I can do it."

Finch eyes the exposed wound along Reese's ribcage. He looks away from the gaping skin.

Looks back.

Swallows again.

Beneath the sheen of blood, there's a long scar on the flat of Reese's stomach. A shorter one flanking it. He wonders if either of the two were self-attended.

Reese is watching him, his jaw visibly clenched.

Finch makes a decision.

"I hardly think that's possible," he says. He presses his mouth into a resolute line. "Lay back."

He gets another odd look, so he repeats himself.

He waits for Reese to obey and then examines the kit in his hand, opening it with a slight tremble in his fingers. Watching Reese over the top of his glasses. He shifts on his knees and another twinge goes through his back.

When he starts to read the instructions aloud, Reese shifts to sit up again, pushing at the paper.

" _Finch_."

Finch gives him a look. "Lay back," he says. Reese is considering. "John."

The ex-op lays back again, resignedly. He gives Finch a wary eye and then flutters his lids closed. "Don't need... that." Breathing out audibly, he says, "I'll tell you how."

Later it's Finch who winces, each time he pulls a stitch closed, each time the needle punctures flesh.

The tremor never leaves his hands.

Reese's voice doesn't waver. Instructions soft and even. He lies on his good side, facing away as Finch slowly works. An indifferent profile.

"Alright," Finch says quietly. A snip of the surgical scissors just below the final knot. He pauses, breathing in through his nose, out through his mouth. _Okay_. Reese hasn't moved, and he gives the younger man's leg a stiff pat. _Done_.

There's an exhale.

A soft, "Good job, Finch."

Finch's hands are bloody. He stares at them.

Simple.

"Do they teach this in Boy Scouts, John?"

There's brief pause.

"I don't know." Reese rolls to his back. His face is blank and distant, he squints at the ceiling. He says something else, an incoherent murmur that sounds like, "Never was a Boy Scout," and then closes his eyes.

Finch studies the stoic face. For a moment he sees Nathan, bloody on a gurney.

He blinks, a shake of his head. Looks back at his hands.

Simple had been abandoned a long time ago.

* * *

 _Present_

JOHN:

He jolts awake.

He blinks, twice, but the dark remains. The air is thick, with smoke billowing and the tangy, metallic musk of iron. Pain sets in with his second breath. This isn't the afterlife, he's pretty sure.

He has a free hand, his left, and he reaches awkwardly to tap a com in his right ear. A habit, the motion, but he doesn't speak. A growl sticks in his throat; he squeezes his eyes shut and then opens them.

Darkness.

His fingers come away wet. Sticky. Something warm dripping down his neck.

In a brief panic, he struggles to move and is caught. His left leg is trapped. His other arm. He can't feel them, even as the rest of his body slowly sets itself on fire.

This is when you're supposed to recall every single detail about the critical moments in your life, Reese realizes. But now, here, his mind is blank.

He feels the drunken weight of blood loss. The murky spin.

He squeezes his eyes, opening again to a shift of light in the darkness. A silhouette.

He'd recognize her anywhere.

"Jess," he says, voice hoarse. Whisper soft. "Jessie."

She turns, she smiles.

The world shudders, just as he smiles back. This is it, he thinks.

She disappears, and it all goes black.

FUSCO:

The thunderstorm clears by late afternoon but the breeze remains. Remnant clouds. A moody sky.

He watches Lee skip stones and toss seaweed onto rocks. He did the same when his father took him here, back when his Uncle Mike died. He remembers his dad staring off most of the time. Drinking a lot.

"Dad!"

Fusco looks down at the beer in his own hand, feels the sweat of it in his palm. Looks up. Lee is grinning, he's proud of something and Fusco forces himself to his feet. He feels heavy. Sluggish.

"Five skips," Lee boasts. His skinny arms crisscross his chest. He casts a wide smile at his dad. Eyes bright with pride.

Fusco grins back, but something in his gut twinges as he looks out at the sea, across the sound. A gull cries, its caw echoing above them.

Lee tosses a heavier rock into the water, it hits with a plop.

"Can we stay another night?"

Fusco rubs a hand down his unshaven cheek. It's been nine days since the missile strike, since he last heard anything. No news was good news, so they say, but this.

This had fixed a heavy weight in his chest. A sinking sickness in his stomach.

He checks his phone, a tick now, but its screen is blank.

"Dad?"

He looks up. Lee is staring at him. Brow furrowed.

"What, buddy."

"I _said_ , can we stay another night?"

"Yeah." Fusco says it without thinking. Thinks of how he'll have to call Lee's mother after the fact. Fight for another day with his kid. He works on relaxing his face. Forces another smile.

A gull caws again. They both look up.

The air is still heavy after the rain, the salty breeze still thick with humidity.

"Definitely," he says, cementing the decision.

"Sweet!" Lee kicks up a cloud of sand with the toe of his sandal. He takes off toward the water, no pause in stride as he hits the surf.

Fusco watches him. Takes a swallow from his beer. He pulls his phone, looking at its screen before pulling up his ex's number.

He's not ready to go back either.

* * *

 _2012_

"I gotta get back," Reese says.

Fusco blinks. He scans the shoreline: the burning vehicle, money fluttering in the breeze. "How do you…" Three suspects sprawled out on the earth, unconscious, limbs in awkward states of rest. He can't. "Seriously?"

"You're welcome, Lionel."

"Yeah?" He gives Reese a frustrated side-eye. "Thanks, guy. How am I gonna explain this?"

Reese's profile is impassive. "Money," he says slowly, gesturing absently to the rippling bills. Another motion to the stilled bodies. "Bad guys."

Right.

"And the explosion?"

The _grenade_?

There's a quirk at the edge of Reese's mouth; he turns his head, meeting Fusco's eye.

"You're the detective, _detective_." His voice is sing-song.

Fusco gives him a hard stare.

Reese's head tilts to the side, just a notch. Listening. For a second he looks mollified, but it's fleeting.

The pain-in-the-ass look is back.

"The security camera," Reese says. "The footage should be self-explanatory."

Fusco follows Reese's line of sight to the electronic eye atop a light pole. He finds himself gaping at the camera, eyes squinted in the glare of the sun.

The footage would be self-explanatory, yes; but it would also be incriminating. And not just for the "bad guys".

He looks back to Reese, who raises his eyebrows. Fusco wants to wipe the smug look off his face.

"You looking to add to your rap sheet?" he asks instead.

"Very funny, Lionel."

"Look. Unless you got up in there and did your black magic, uh, whatever it is IT thing, then-"

"It's clean, Lionel."

There's sirens then, a squealing tire. Fusco turns. His backup's here. Only six minutes late.

Thanks, guys.

When he turns back, Reese is nowhere.

"Thanks a lot," he mutters.

* * *

 _Present_

JOHN:

There's a bird with darkened plumage, sitting on a broken pipe. Reese watches and whistles; it tilts its head. He squints.

It looks like a crow.

"It's a raven, John."

He twists, a rush of ice in his veins. His ears are ringing.

He stares.

"Harold." It comes out a whisper. A wheeze.

"Mr. Reese."

Through smoke, Reese makes out the familiar form. Fighting a haze of pain, his mind racing with fragments of any intelligible thought. Finch's suit is impeccable. The thin smile is comfortingly familiar. But something is off.

"Finch," he manages, "where are your glasses?"

"My glasses?" Finch's mouth slants slightly; he seems amused. Then, gently, "I don't need them."

Reese swallows back a sudden swirl of nausea. He raises his gaze a moment, skyward, then sets it back on Finch.

So, he thinks bleakly, they were dead.

There's a tightness in his chest. He takes a silent, ragged breath.

"John." Finch says his name cautiously. "I warned you from the start." As though Finch had heard the unspoken thought. "It was only a matter of time before..."

He trails off.

Reese closes his eyes. It hurts, really. A little more than he thought it might.

He never learns.

He sets his jaw. He's okay, being dead. It's just-

There's a fluttering. He looks to the bird.

"John-"

"It wasn't supposed to be both of us," Reese interrupts. He keeps his gaze on the raven. He hears the flatness in his tone. Feels Finch's stare. The raven flaps its wings again, agitated.

The world shudders before Finch responds; it begins to break into pieces.

Reese swings his gaze back; the bird lets out a throaty _kraa_.

"Harold?"

There's a searing pain that rips at him. He stifles a grunt. Fights to move again.

And then, he's falling.

The world erupts in noise.

"Harold!"

His shout is hoarse, useless. The sound of a freight train roars around him.

" _John_ ," he hears.

He can't respond, locked in stillness as he plunges. He struggles against whatever vice holds him there, darkness haloing his vision.

" _Wake up, John_."

The words sound more a distant echo. Each passing second, the roar more deafening.

" _John_."

Head pounding. He's paralyzed, lights flashing. He's not in his body.

He remembers suddenly, being in a cruiser. The blue and red and orange of the lights flashing through the windshield.

"Kid," the cop had said. Leaning over him. The look on his face.

He knew then. No one was coming.

Rain had peppered the glass.

"I'm sorry," the officer said.

" _John_."

Blue, red, orange.

He closes his eyes.

" _Wake up_."

* * *

 _Present_

SAMEEN:

Shaw stares at Fusco when he says the name. She bites into her burger. Feels a drip of grease escape, the trickle down her chin. She wipes it with the back of a fist.

"Jeffrey Blackwell," he says again.

She gives him a tired look. Takes another bite.

He's not an idiot.

"We could have done it differently," he says finally, lowering his voice. He isn't happy.

Though a mouthful of beef she replies, "Cut the crap, Lionel."

He gives her a hard look.

When she doesn't react, he takes a long sip of his beer. Leans back in his chair, staring at the half eaten order of wings in front of him.

Yeah, Shaw thinks. Me too.

She stares; he notices. The look he gives her is clear: _Don't_. Last week, she'd voiced her surprise when he'd joined her in a round.

"What," he'd said, a little too defensively, "it's just a beer."

She dips a fry in ketchup.

"What's on the docket?" She reaches for the thick Manila folder he'd laid on the table when he'd first arrived. She's not that interested in it, but it breaks the lull.

"Nothing." Fusco pulls the file back, frowning at the ghost of greasy fingerprints on its edge. "Mitts off."

"Thought you were taking a break," she continues, ignoring the words and inching it forward again. She has enough time to briefly scan the file before he snags it back and lands her a glare.

"Yeah," he mutters. "Well."

She holds his stare. She knows it hasn't been easy for him, returning to the precinct. Even with the number of transfers, the reorg. The flurry of excitement surrounding the missile strike (an oddly contained explosion for something with the potential to be so catastrophic). But all the same.

People didn't forget.

"Time waits for no man." There's a hint of bitterness in his tone. A sarcastic smile. "Neither do jobs."

"Speaking of," Shaw says. She pretends to consult her nonexistent watch. Drains her own beer. "Gotta run, Lionel." She stands to leave, then hesitates.

He hasn't asked.

It's her turn, this time.

"Hey," she starts. Then, "Anything?"

Fusco catches her eye. He gives a brief shake of his head. A wistful smile. _No._

She nods and makes for the exit.

* * *

 _2013_

Shaw mutters a curse and tracks the crowd, her lost target.

She comes to an abrupt stop and swears under her breath. Glaring to a woman who elbows past, a flash of bangle bracelets and an alligator purse.

Scanning. Another look up the block.

Annoyed now, sensing defeat. Finch, stiff and limping, had somehow vanished on her. Gone. Down an empty side street.

"I told you." From behind comes a familiar voice. Soft and smug. "He does that."

And this one.

She turns, frowning. "You tailing me?"

Reese gives a small shrug and pulls his overcoat tighter around the neck. There's a quirk of a smile on his face: almost an apology.

Almost.

It's windy out, it whips around them and she annoyedly tucks back the strands of hair that wrap across her face.

"You're losing your touch, Shaw," Reese says mildly.

It's a busy intersection, a stream of pedestrians part around them. She narrows her eyes at the dig. Glances back in the direction Finch had disappeared.

The two made an unlikely pair: Finch with his meticulous three-piece suits and limping gait; Reese looking like mail-order ex-military for hire, always the same black-and-white.

Shaw looks back to him. Standing tall, always at attention. The dog is there, glued to his left leg. It sits, sensing a pause, and opens its mouth in a pant that looks like an amused smile.

Shaw shakes her head.

"Ridiculous," she says.

Reese exchanges a look with the canine. Says something that sounds German. (Dutch, she later learns.)

The dog rises.

She's about to tell him to get lost and make an exit. Behind them, the shrill ring of a telephone interrupts.

Reese's gaze flicks to the payphone, then up to a mounted camera, high on a pole. He hands her Bear's leash without asking. Steps to answer the call.

Shaw rolls her eyes and looks down, stepping out of the sidewalk's traffic. The shepherd heels and watches her expectantly.

"I think," she murmurs, "you're all nuts."

Bear lets out a low whine.

There's a moment she thinks about taking the dog and just, _going_.

She isn't sure where.

Reese is back. He holds his hand out but Shaw ignores the gesture, shifting the leash to her opposite hand. Giving him an expectant look.

"New number," he allows.

She glances to the phone booth. Back to Reese, who watches her with a guarded expression.

So this was how they got their numbers?

"Lead the way." She doesn't offer the leash, just stares at him. Waiting. He looks down at Bear.

He's bothered, she thinks. Just a little.

"You look hungry," she comments later, stopping at a curb, waiting for a lull in the traffic to cross. She steps off, not waiting for the _Walk._

Reese is a step behind now. The Library just a block away. "I'm not," he answers bluntly.

Yep. He's bothered.

"I was talking to the dog, Reese," she says for good measure.

He blinks; she turns in time to catch it and then smirks, keeping her eyes forward.

* * *

 _Present_

JOHN:

When he opens his eyes, he blearily registers the pale walls, the unfamiliar green curtains. There's a rhythmic beeping. A humming.

A hand on his arm.

"Hey there."

The voice is soft.

He blinks groggily, expecting darkness to return.

Hoping for it.

"Hi," she says. His eyes focus a little on the dark-haired woman. She's a nurse.

He's in a hospital.

He blinks again.

"Can you tell us your name?" There's a rustling, the clinking of metal instruments on a surgical tray.

"John," he murmurs, and shuts his eyes. His voice is hoarse.

He hurts.

"Welcome back, John… You've been away for quite awhile."

He squints his eyes open slightly. How long, he almost asks, but he realizes he doesn't care. His eyes flutter shut.

"John?" Her voice is still gentle. He hears muffled voices from the hall, the sound of soft footsteps.

The steady beeping.

He can feel his heart in his chest. The heavy, slow throb.

A dulled but ever present pain.

He's alive.

He flickers open his eyes. "Did anyone come?" he whispers, before he can think not to.

 _Did we win?_

The nurse presses a sympathetic smile.

Reese accounts for his casted right arm and bandaged torso, the wires and tubes spilling out of him in a tangled disorder. He tries to adjust himself in the bed; he finds himself immobilized.

He grimaces, the attempt painful.

"Your legs," the nurse starts, and then she pauses. Reese stares blankly at the indeterminate shapes beneath the white knitted blanket covering his lower half, barely registering her, "You've come a long way."

He lets his eyes close again, their lids feeling heavy.

There's movement next to the bed, he can feel the presence of another person.

Whispers.

A rustle.

"John? Welcome back, buddy. What can you remember?"

He opens his eyes, just enough to see the face of the older gentleman behind the prodding words. He lets them slide shut again.

He imagines when he opens them, he'll be back in darkness.

He hopes.

Something of that must register on his face.

"Don't worry," the original nurse says, accustomed to giving false hopes. Reese feels gentle pressure on his arm. A soft squeeze. "You'll remember. It will all come back."

He starts to drift, giving in to the morphine-laced sleep.

The problem is, he never forgot.


	2. Chapter 2

_2013_

JOHN:

Reese is tired. It's midnight.

He sinks into the worn office chair, sliding it closer to the desk, resting an elbow on a leather bound edition of _The Stranger_. Staring down at the book his eyes lose focus, the blue cover swimming in his vision. Chosen on its own or forming part of a recent number, he's only mildly curious.

He needs a drink.

Finch's profile is shadowed, features sharp in silhouette as his fingers fly over keys. Skimming, altering code. Eyes focused somewhere in the mix of flat-screened monitors, he accepts a ball that Bear has suddenly proffered, the shepherd staring at him with innocent expectancy. Absently throwing it, a second-natured habit.

The thwonk and thwink of the tennis ball bouncing.

The scrambling of nails on hardwood, out and back.

Trading Finch's participation, Bear collapses at Reese's feet with a dramatic exhale. Retrieval abandoned. One and done, chin heavy on the worn green ball.

There's a silence. Reese finds his own head heavy, his eyes scanning the shadows of the room around them. The expanses of shelves, of books, of archaic knickknacks he can cite off one by one.

The soft tap-click-tap of the keyboard.

He thinks again about leaving it all and a familiar tightness works it way into his chest.

He never learns.

Finch's thin voice interrupts. "I believe he missed you."

Reese glances down to Bear, whose chin has shifted to his shoe, and the dog's tail thumps softly. He gives a small smile.

He had missed them too.

The tightening returns. He blinks.

He misses _her_.

Reese looks up and finds himself on the end of a keen gaze; it sees right through him. He looks away, eyes back to the stacks.

Earlier, when Shaw had gotten in his face, when she had growled, "You don't get to just _leave_ ," he had stayed silent, accepting the rebuke.

Leaving had always been something he was good at.

Something he should have done sooner.

Shaw had continued, voice low in warning: "If you think this was easy for him..." She had stared at him, seething resentment, and then shaken her head and left.

Reese stares now at the cracked glass board, the unfamiliar glossy faces.

Cases solved in his absence.

They'd had a rhythm, he and Finch. But he wasn't irreplaceable.

"It's good to be back," he says, trying to convince himself of it. He owes it to Finch, but the words lack any intonation.

Even he could do better.

"Mm." Finch's mouth twists ruefully when Reese glances in his direction.

He doesn't buy it either.

Reese leans back in the chair, away from the desk, and sinks lower. The back of his skull rests on its wooden top rail, pressure on his occipital crest.

Finch, softly, asks a fair question. "Where were you going?"

Reese turns his head, relieving the strain on his neck, the force on his skull.

Not Italy, that was certain.

Not Istanbul.

He hopes Finch doesn't ask what he would he have done when he got there.

He'd played a lot of roles in his life. A few for years, others for hours. He'd learned to disconnect from those people, over time, enough so that when he looked back it was like watching characters in a distant movie.

John Reese though, the one that Finch allowed to live, was beginning to feel present.

And then Joss Carter died.

He rubs his shoulder absently, a faint ache from an old injury. Looks back to Finch.

"I understand," Finch starts in his silence, "if you blame-"

"Finch." He shakes his head, once.

The eyes behind the glasses never waver.

Reese maintains the stare for another few seconds and then turns his head forward again, allowing the chair to dig into his skull.

It's a conversation they haven't had. Not in Rome, not in the days since he'd been back.

He does better, he thinks, without those types of conversations.

"Yes, well," Finch says, but when Reese looks back the other man has turned away, back to the glow of the monitors and code. There's a tightness around his mouth. Disappointment. "While admittedly I would prefer you stay." He stops. "You're free, Mr. Reese, if you need..."

"Finch," he says again, tiredly. A long look. "Don't."

It's half a dream, the time since he'd left. As though he'd lived several lifetimes since then.

 _I missed you too_ , he wants to say. He'd missed direction. Something tethering him to this world.

He says nothing.

"When we-when _I_ began this," Finch starts again, "I never imagined…"

He trails off. Reese wonders if he means building the machine, trying to save the numbers.

Hiring him.

He could ask.

Imagined _what_ , he could say.

Letting good people-friends-die?

"Don't," he says instead, again, hearing the hardness creeping into his voice, a resistance to Finch's unspoken apology. "I'm just…" His words are lazily drawled; a sign he should say less than more.

I'm just having a hard time, he wants to admit.

He doesn't.

He stops, forcing himself to sit forward. Shifting his elbow back onto the desk, he flips open the blue-bound Camus, the yellowed pages fluttering to a random chapter.

He stares at the text.

"It's worth a read," he hears Finch say. "If you haven't."

He looks up. Lets the book fall closed.

"It's midnight, Finch." He keeps his voice light. "Too late for existentialism."

He gets a twitch of a smile for that and then Finch is pushing back his chair.

"Go home, Mr. Reese." A beat. "Take it with with you."

Reese stares at the abandoned computer station. He hears the familiar, uneven gait. The sound of Finch puttering behind him.

 _Home_.

Bear moves to follow as Finch moves out of sight.

"I don't know how you sit like that," he hears Finch comment, and a moment later there's the weight of a hand on his head. It's gone before he blinks, so brief he might have imagined it.

A jingle. The sound of Bear's leash clipping onto the dog's collar.

There's a pause.

Finch is waiting.

He unfolds himself.

Later he paces the windows of his loft. Staring down at Columbus Park in the eerie twilight moon.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs softly. His forehead touching glass.

He closes his eyes, his fingers touching lead in the pocket of his sweats. An absent roll of metal between thumb and forefinger.

He reaches to tap the com, still in his ear, but stops. Lets his hand fall to his side.

 _C'mon, Johnny._

When he sits at the table and unscrews the cap from the bottle, he pours two glasses.

* * *

 _Present_

HAROLD:

Grace is sitting on the floor in front of the couch, surrounded by papers and sketches.

She looks up as he comes in.

"You wrote me a poem once," she says, holding out a piece of paper. There's a pool of light from the desk lamp on the end table; her hair is a glowing flame.

He takes the sheet, a wistful smile painted on his lips as he reads it.

"I remember."

He remembers her blue dress, the breeze off the water. His naïveté: that this part of life could be simple, if he were to give up the rest.

He looks up.

"Grace…"

She shakes her head, eyes glistening. _Don't_. She smiles though. _It's okay_.

Later they pour wine. They stare at each other across a table. Views of Arno and Pontevecchio. The left riverbank with all its colorful houses.

"I didn't ask for this," she says.

It's been one month since he'd flown to Italy. Thirty days since he'd approached her in the square and she had turned from her plein air canvas, staring at him like she had seen a ghost.

 _The pain of parting_ , he thinks, _is nothing to the joy of meeting again_.

But what comes next?

When he had escaped the hospital in New York with his newly dead body, the pain in his gut a visceral mask to the ache of loss, he'd never felt so alone.

A phone had rung, shrill and loud, within moments on the street; he'd heard the distant voice of a stranger picking it up as he had passed.

Again, it rang at the public library, where he had consolidated funds and rescued an identity for himself, booking a one-way ticket to Florence.

And again, at the airport, where he'd finally picked it up.

" _Harry?_ "

"Harold?"

He snaps back to present, to Grace.

She gives him a gentle smile.

"Ever want to sail away?" He arches a brow, turning his gaze back to the river.

It's been difficult, more difficult than he thought, picking up the life he had left off. He wasn't the same.

And neither was she.

She reaches across the table for his hand; she grips it tightly.

"Not anymore."

* * *

 _2014_

They stand at the marina's edge at dawn, early morning light flooding the harbor. The moored boats are washed in yellow.

A colony of gulls circle, echoing cries from above filling the silence.

"He said we'll have his support in the future."

Staring across the inlet, Finch still can't help but raise his brows at Reese's words. "I _was_ listening," he says, shifting slightly. A twist of his torso to eye his employee.

Reese stays bent over the dock's rail, expression slack. His eyes stay locked on the horizon. "I was reading between the lines."

"Mm."

There's a silence between them.

"Finch?" Reese's voice sounds a little hoarse when he speaks again. "Ever think about, just… sailing away?"

There's a two-masted schooner in the distance. Finch studies it a moment, then shifts again to look at the silent profile beside him.

"Sailing," he muses. The wind snaps a flag above them. "Mm. Afraid I'm not particularly fond of boats, Mr. Reese."

He glances over at Reese, who smiles crookedly at the harbor.

When he watches the ship again, the way it cuts through the water effortlessly, he can admit that it's beautiful.

"I lived with this family once," Reese says. "When I was a kid. The father had this old sailboat… he was fixing it up."

When Finch shifts his stance, leaning his weight against the rail, Reese turns his head to look at him before bringing his eyes back to the horizon.

"Me and this other kid were there. Danny." Reese chuckles, very softly, as though remembering something amusing. "Danny and I were going to steal that boat one night. Maybe take it to Canada." A pause. "Alaska. Anywhere."

Finch smiles slightly. "A lofty plan, Mr. Reese."

"Mm." Reese hums in agreement. He laughs again, then shakes his head. "Yeah."

The caw and cackle of gulls.

"Danny got hurt that summer, worse than usual, and they took us away." The flag snaps again as he looks back to Finch. He straightens up, quirking the corner of his mouth. _It happens_.He moves away from the pilings.

Finch frowns into the expanse. He has no words.

"Never got to be a pirate," Reese says, trailing off. He's stretching, hands clasped behind his neck when Finch turns away from the view. The boat blending into the distance. He presses a smile at Finch, almost apologetic. "I didn't learn a lot about human kindness that summer. But I learned a lot about boats."

* * *

 _Present_

JOHN:

He lifts the phone from its cradle, holding it clumsily to his ear. He doesn't speak. The only breathing he hears is his own.

A familiar, cheery voice: " _Feeling better_?"

Reese hesitates, something clenching in his gut.

It can't.

The line is silent. Waiting. He hears the beat of his heart in his chest.

"Root?"

There's a pause on the line. He rubs a hand down his face, across the scruffiness of beard on his chin. His eyes flick to the doorway, to the foot traffic of nurses outside, the muffled sound of their nightly charting.

He's thinking he imagined the phone ring, that he's picked it up for no reason.

" _I chose her voice_ ," it says then, and a chill goes through him.

He shifts, starting to rise.

" _Easy, big guy. Pretty sure you're still on bedrest._ "

He freezes, scanning the room. The corners of the ceiling, the curtains and cabinets. His eyes land on a flat screen monitor, the computer.

He stares.

" _Were your accommodations acceptable? This is a more specialized facility than where they originally airlifted you._ "

He presses a button on the side of the bed. Humming. It's bed height; he hits two more clumsily before bringing his head up.

" _I can lock that, John._ "

"And I... can get... up." His voice is strained. Even though he says it, he's not sure he believes it.

The Machine laughs.

He closes his eyes, breathing in and out through his nose slowly. He feels high as a kite, numbed out on drugs and pain.

Well.

If this is real.

She made it.

"The others?" he asks finally.

The line is silent.

"Harold?" He opens his eyes. Breathing. In and out. "Shaw? … Lionel?"

" _Sameen and Lionel are here in the city_." A pause. " _They're starting to work with me again._ "

The numbers.

"Finch?"

There's a long pause.

Reese lifts the phone away from his ear, staring into the receiver dumbly. Bringing it back to his ear.

"Where's Harold?"

The question hangs. He looks to the computer, the tiny indent of the webcam's presence.

"Admin," he tries, hearing his voice go up a pitch even in its state of whisper. "Where is admin?"

" _In my current configuration_ ," she says, casually, " _I do not have an admin._ "

"Oh for Christ's sake-" Reese hisses, breaking off. He stops to catch a breath.

He remembers.

Finch on the other rooftop.

Finch, clutching a gun in his right hand. Pressing the left to his gut.

Bleeding.

" _He's in a better place, John_."

He clicks off the phone. His heart pounding in his chest.

When it rings again, he clicks it back on.

He waits, listening his own breathing. The sound of one of his monitors beeping.

The Machine is patient, borrowing Root's matter-of-fact tone. " _This is what he wants, John. For us to live on_."

"We had… an agreement."

" _We did. And I never said thank you_." The Machine pauses. " _Thank you, John._ "

"Yeah, well. We're... even." He rolls his eyes toward the ceiling, a stinging behind them. His stomach lurches. "I'm... out." Breathing. "Don't... contact me... again."

He hangs up.

He waits.

When it rings for the third time, he clicks it on and lets it clatter to the floor.

* * *

 _2013_

SAMEEN:

"I knew you were holding out on me."

Finch looks up, startled. He closes his eyes for a moment. "Must you do that?"

Shaw eyes him. The three books he has balanced, spines up, on the desk. "So we have another number."

"I haven't decided."

"Decided," Shaw repeats, staring at him. He's set the books down, turning to face her. "I didn't think you got to decide."

"Actually," Finch says, a little primly, shifting back to the desk, "I do."

A pause.

"Okay... well, is that going to happen anytime soon, or should I be looking for action elsewhere?"

There's a tightening around Finch's mouth. A haunted reluctance.

Before she can continue, Finch taps at the keyboard. She watches his face; the look of surprise.

She steps closer. Glances at the screen and the photo of a middle aged man. She reads the name aloud. Frowns at her employer's clear shock.

"Something wrong, Finch?"

"No," he says, clearly a lie, "nothing. We should get to work."

* * *

 _Present_

The payphone rings and her first thought is to walk away. But the dog leans toward it, a true creature of Pavlov, and she is not too different.

On the second ring, she makes up her mind.

She lifts the handle from its cradle, raising it to her ear.

* * *

Shaw surveys the room, the state-of-the-art medical equipment. The empty bed, unmade. An IV pole abandoned in the corner, still clipped with bags and lines.

She frowns.

"Are you a relative?"

She turns.

The nurse is older. Graying hair, crow's feet around her sharp green eyes. She offers a friendly but untrusting smile. _What are you doing here?_

Shaw takes a risk.

"Dr. Sheridan," she lies, sounding crisp to her own ears. "Here on consult. But…" She gestures to the empty bed with her chin. Raises her eyebrows. "MRI? CT?"

Her phone buzzes. She glances down.

 _Too late_ , it reads.

She frowns.

Looks back to the nurse, who has the patient's chart in hand. The woman shakes her head.

"Just changing shifts," she admits. "Kelly was filling me in." A pause as she moves to a small computer station and taps a few keys. A murmured, "Nothing scheduled…" She looks at Shaw. "Will you give me a second?"

Alone in the room, Shaw counts to three and then picks up the abandoned chart.

She frowns first at the patient's name: _John_. No surname.

The rest. The rest feels like she's been stabbed between the ribs.

Trauma victim. Two hospital transfers. Multiple gunshot wounds. Perforating, penetrating. Chest, abdomen, bicep, tricep, thigh. A fractured femur. Several breaks along the right arm.

Coma.

She flips back in the chart, frantically looking for a date.

There's pieces missing here.

She shakes her head, knowing it can't be possible.

It's been too long. Too long without any word, any hint.

She turns, scanning the room for some type of clue.

Her phone buzzes.

"Bullshit," she says, reading the text.

 _Guess your new number decided he didn't need any help._

She frowns.

Glances to the empty bed.

"No." She shakes her head. "He doesn't get to decide."

There's elevated voices in the hallway. She glances at the door, shadowed figures gathering there.

"It's Reese," she demands in a hisses whisper, "isn't it."

The phone is silent.

"Tell me."

If it is Reese, she thinks, then how…

"Dr. Sheridan?"

Shaw spins, almost dropping the chart. She feigns confidence. Plasters an inpatient expression on her face. "Could someone please explain-"

"Dr. Sheridan, we apologize for the confusion. The patient was taken down to MRI." The nurse smiles, but there's a slight knit between her eyebrows that wasn't there before.

Shaw's phone buzzes. She glances down.

 _False._

"He's only recently been mobile-"

Buzz. _True_.

"-so they wanted to further access some of his injuries."

Shaw lowers the chart to the overbed table, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Look," she says bluntly. "I don't have time for this. I was told-"

"I'm sorry, Doctor." She looks Shaw up and down. The disheveled ponytail is likely an acceptable cover. The lack of any identification badge, not so much. "Dr. Sheridan. I don't recognize your name. What department did you say you were from?"

A crackling code comes in over the loudspeakers in the hallway.

Shaw raises an eyebrow. Gives the nurse a knowing smirk and points a finger to the doorway as the code is announced a second time.

"Missing patient?"

* * *

JOHN:

He's not sure why he's come.

Stillness lies over the shelves, years worth of dust.

He wanders through the stacks, running his hands along the spines of the books. Novels and textbooks. Fiction and nonfiction.

He pauses at the window, broken glass crunching under his shoes.

It's so quiet. So very empty. He swallows. Glances at the table at the center of the room.

There's a tight burst of panic in his chest.

He closes his eyes.

He can't.

When the gate pulls down with a familiar clack and rattle (he's not sure why he closes it), he blinks the tears that fill his eyes and heads to the stairs, each limping step a struggle.

He doesn't look back.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Never meant for so much time to pass without an update. But... Life. Hope you're still with me._

* * *

 _Present_

FUSCO:

Heads down pedestrians, fighting with rain whipped umbrellas.

From the warmth of the cruiser, Fusco snaps apart a pistachio and drops the shell into an old styrofoam cup.

"Still a bad idea?" He flips on a turn signal and glances to his right. Lee is giving him a grumpy side eye from the passenger seat.

Fusco vaguely remembers a time when riding to school in the patrol car was cool. Fun, even. The days of the _Dad, throw the lights_!

"Green," Lee says in monotone.

Fusco gives him a look of his own before pulling into the intersection and making a left. Popping another nut in his mouth, he watches the battered commuters.

 _You're welcome_.

"You do your homework?"

A grunt.

He cracks one more nut at the next intersection and then holds the bag out. Lee eyes the offering with a slight wrinkle to his nose.

"Sometimes those have worms."

"Worms."

"Yeah."

Fusco stares at him a minute and then shakes his head. He cracks apart another, stepping on the gas pedal when the traffic light turns green.

His phone vibrates.

He looks down.

"Dad."

He stares at the text from Shaw.

" _Dad_."

He feels hot suddenly, and then cold; his stomach does a little flip.

" _Daaaaaaad_."

"Yeah." Fusco rubs a hand across the back of his neck. He exhales and glances to Lee. "Yeah, buddy."

His phone buzzes again.

And again.

"-hands free, Dad."

"Yeah, yeah. Relax, bud, will ya?"

He tightens his grip on the steering wheel.

Ten minutes.

It can wait ten minutes.

"Hockey scrimmage tonight," he says. He turns his head to look at Lee again. "Grab a slice after?"

There's a hesitation, a frown, and then, "I thought… I thought you couldn't come."

Ah.

"What? Miss the first game of the season?"

"Scrimmage, Dad," Lee corrects. "Just a scrimmage." But he's smiling.

They pull up to a curb a half block from the school. Lee opens the car door. The sound and smell of rain enter as it swings open.

"Hey."

Lee looks up. Swinging his backpack over his shoulder.

"Love you, bud."

Lee looks disgusted. He glances around and then slides clumsily out of the warmth of the vehicle.

"Whatever," he says, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Fusco watches him make a run for the door, the curly head disappearing into the crowd of teens and tweens.

His phone buzzes.

He looks down.

He leans his head back against the headrest. Closing his eyes. Rain pattering the metal roof of the car.

When the phone buzzes twice in quick succession, he taps its screen and lifts it to his ear.

"Hey."

* * *

HAROLD:

"You're grieving," she says, on Day 43.

Grace is painting, she _was_ painting, in the studio and he was-

He was, somehow, here.

Finch stares at the standing cup of tea. It's still steaming. He doesn't remember making it. Steeping it. Removing the teaball and laying it on the napkin, just to the left.

"Harold?"

He blinks.

He looks up and sees Grace, who isn't painting, sitting across from him.

"I'm sorry," he says. When he presses a smile he feels it at the corner of his eyes. Forced. She's spoken and yet he didn't register the words. "You were saying?"

Grace looks down at her coffee. Puts her hands around the cup.

"Harold," she says quietly. "Tell me." When she looks at him again, it's with such compassion his heart aches. "We can talk about it. About… them."

He smiles again, the same forced expression. He takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose.

Gently, she continues. "I know a bit about grief, Harold."

For a minute they hold each others' gaze.

He says then, "I never stopped loving you." A wistful slant to his mouth. "I missed you," he continues emphatically, "every day. Every _minute_."

Grace stares at him. Not believing and wanting to believe at the same time.

"Every minute," she echoes softly. "Yes."

 _Yes, I know something about that._

"I'm sorry," he says. "I just… I don't mean to put all of this on you. I've imagined this- _us_ -for so long. Living in the shadow of this... _giant_. And then, here we are. And I don't quite… I don't quite know how to do it."

 _I don't quite know how to leave them behind._

He trails off.

She puts a hand on his arm; he forces himself not to pull away.

"You miss them."

He looks back to his tea.

 _Unfathomably_.

It had been a brilliant escape route: find Grace. Find Grace and renew the lease on those four happy years.

And how quickly time was passing. Over the course of weeks, settling into sedate domesticity.

Forty-three days.

 _It's time_ , he had said at the airport, murmured words into the sticky receiver of the pay telephone.

 _Harry_ -

 _Please_.

"Harold?"

He looks up, hands wrapped around the warmth of the coffee cup (since when did his fingers tremble like that?).

"You're right," he says, in a voice that doesn't quite sound his own.

They should talk. It's come out in pieces, the story. The past six years.

Six _years_.

Since when had the days since Grace outnumbered the days with her?

She squeezes his hand. _Say something_.

When he doesn't, she whispers, "No more secrets." A gentle smile.

Words he had given to her, more than once since he'd returned. An apology of sorts.

"No more secrets," he repeats.

Time passes slowly, on Day 43.

* * *

 _2013_

JOHN:

He takes a knife for Shaw.

She doesn't realize, initially, his grunt disguised within an effort to disarm. Mario had lunged; Reese had pushed her to the side. The blade sliding neatly between his ribs. The next thirty seconds were focused on blocking, on turning. Twisting the wrist. The sound of the knife clattering to the cement of the garage floor.

It's now, riding shotgun, because Shaw is a terrible driver (running a red, slamming on breaks so they don't hit a delivery van). She's aware, staring at him. At the smear of blood on the dash from the hand he'd used to brace himself.

"You're a terrible driver," he tells her, beginning to feel the lightheaded swoon that accompanies blood loss. He adjusts his hand, back beneath his jacket, to stop the bleeding. His shirt is sticky. Slick and warm between his fingers.

"You're kidding," she's saying, eyes half on him, half on the road. "He stabbed you."

And then Finch's voice. Through the earpiece, his voice is shrill. Alarmed.

" _John?"_

"-I'm fine," he says, at the same time Shaw shoots him daggers.

"You're not _fine_. And now I can't return this car, since you're bleeding all over it-"

" _-you're bleeding?"_

"No, it's just-"

"He is."

"-a small-"

"-gushing blood."

" _Mr. Reese?"_

"Shaw's hurt too," he says in a blunt tone matching hers, though he's not sure why he bothers. He's staring at her scraped knuckles, her hands clenching the steering wheel.

She turns her head, giving him a slightly open-mouthed, incredulous look.

"Seriously?" she mouths.

" _Mr. Reese."_

"It's fine, Finch. A scratch. It stopped bleeding already." A warning look to Shaw, who looks pissed.

"Liar," she mutters, hooking a sharper than necessary left turn.

He doesn't make a sound.

Later, he allows her to tend to it. The number finished, Mario handed off to Fusco. She's efficient but not gentle. Rough even.

"See," he says when she presses on a bandage with unnecessary pressure, "it's fine."

"You're an asshole."

Reese raises his eyebrows at the muttered sentiment but stays silent. He pulls his undershirt back down. The crisp bandage disappearing behind stained cotton.

"And you can't sleep here."

"What?"

Shaw balls up the excess gauze, a bloodied dressing. She regards him solemnly.

Reese starts to smile. "Does Finch know you stay at the safe houses, Shaw?"

Her suturing supplies clink against each other as she collects them. "It's a waste," she mutters. "Dozens of apartments. Vacant. Just… bleeding utilities. Whatever. You can't sleep here."

He laughs.

* * *

 _Present_

"Can't sleep here."

Reese comes to with a jerk, his left hand reaching awkwardly behind him for a gun that isn't there.

He's not yet sober, but close; dry mouthed and heavy headed. A trickle of despair already flooding into the bloodstream. He pulls down the rim of the baseball cap on his head, straightening up.

Trying to remember.

Behind the bar, a white-haired man regards him with a frown, a squinted gaze.

"Well. Morning, kid."

It smells like stale beer and disinfectant.

"Sorry," Reese murmurs. Starting to stand. A wave of vertigo hits him. He sinks back.

The old man eyes him carefully. "You," he says. "You were here last week." Reese shakes his head ( _you must be mistaken)_ but the man continues, confident of the recognition _._ "Broke up that fight between Stevens and Mac."

He needs to stand. To flee.

"I'm good with faces."

"Sorry," Reese repeats. He's made a mistake, coming here a second time. The quiet, the dim lighting and cheap booze. It wasn't worth it. He lowers his eyes. "Wasn't me."

"Yeah?" The voice is mild behind its gruffness. "We can check the cameras if you like."

"There aren't any."

"Pardon?"

"Cameras. There's none in here."

The old man hooks his chin up at the eye of a prominent security camera mounted at the corner of the tin-plated ceiling. "What do you call that?"

Without looking up, Reese says, "Decoration."

"And the one out back?"

"Rusted decoration."

The old man arches an eyebrow. He studies Reese carefully. "What's your name, kid?"

He hesitates, first. "John."

"Hmph." The old man regards him a moment and then stretches out a hand. "Alright, Johnny. I'm Mike."

Reese accepts the handshake. Resting a hand on the bar top, he stares at the abused wood as he stands. The deep grooves of scratches and ringed water marks.

He's still drunk, he realizes.

"You just get back?"

Reese looks up.

Mike is watching him intently.

"You did serve?"

Reese holds the gaze. "I did."

"Mm." As if to say, _I know the look._ "Fight like it." A pause. "82nd Airbourne."

Reese considers.

"Delta Force," he allows. He glances toward the door.

"And then?"

Reese looks back.

He meets knowing grey eyes.

He adjusts the cap on his head again, pulling it lower. "I have to go." He pushes away from the bar, ignoring his body's protest. "Thanks."

He makes it to the door, palm flat against it. Ready to push it open.

"Hey." Gruffly. "Johnny."

Reese pauses, just long enough.

"Get some help."

He flees.

Outside. It's pouring, the rain drenching through the cracked soles of his shoes, his stolen clothes. The heels of his boots echoing sluggishly in the patter.

It's early still; a purgatory between night and morning. He shivers. The days were changing, growing colder. The nights growing long.

He pauses at the corner. He closes his eyes, remembering.

It's a longer route, the streets he takes, walking slowly, free in the shadows.

When he reaches the corner of his destination, he stops. It's cold. Icy rivulets of rain down his neck. He notes the twin payphones, standing guard in front of the townhouse. A security camera posted atop the opposite light pole.

He ducks his head, pulling his cap low as he turns the corner instead.

"Well played, Finch," he murmurs.

Eyes and ears.

Three blocks more instead. He descends the steps to the nearest subway station, two feet heavy on each metal stair.

He pauses at the bottom.

Rumbling.

He swipes a metro card, limping through the turnstile.

Boarding the first train. An empty car. He sinks into a plastic seat, wet clothes clinging to his clammy skin. He pulls a fifth from his pocket, draining the last of it. Welcoming the warmth that burns his empty belly.

Reese leans his head back. He pulls off the baseball cap, hanging it off his knee.

He breathes out, welcoming sleep.

There are no eyes in the dark.

* * *

HAROLD:

"You don't talk much," she says later, "about John."

The apartment is sun-filled. Bright and yellow.

He realizes that the steady click-click-tap of Grace on the laptop has paused. He finds her staring at him.

Again.

"You need to talk," she says carefully. There's a quiet hope in her eyes.

The chattering of swifts fills his hesitation, a high-pitched echo in the breezeway outside the window.

"John," he repeats. He tries to soothe the familiar ache, the pressure surfacing in his chest.

"I've been patient," she continues without a pause, wringing her hands, belaying his resistance, "since you've been back. I want to make this work. I do. But this...-"

"Grace-"

"No." She closes the laptop with a thud. A firm look. Her eyes shine _._ "I don't know what's worse," she continues. "Before, thinking you were dead, or this. You're not even _here_ , Harold-"

He doesn't tell her how sometimes, when he first wakes up, when he first opens his eyes, that he thinks maybe, just maybe, he's not in Italy.

That maybe it _is_ before.

"Grace."

Grace shakes her head.

She leaves the room before he does this time.

Later. They're walking along the Arno. Crossing the bridge, eating gelato.

Finch sneaks glances at her. The setting sun highlights her hair, the grim tightness of her mouth.

He knows she's been seeing someone. A therapist.

If she can't talk to him, she's said.

If he can't talk to her...

A musician is playing guitar by the bust of Cellini, a softly strung rendition of "Over the Rainbow".

Finch closes his eyes a moment. He doesn't want to lose her.

He can't bear the thought of losing her. Not now.

"You're right you know," he says quietly. He stops. He takes her hands between his, rubbing warmth into the coldness of her fingers.

Grace is quiet, her eyes lowered.

"About John."

Her eyes widen slightly in surprise; she lifts her head.

"Is it possible," he continues softly, "for someone to be so selfless… and so… excruciatingly _selfish_ in the same moment?"

Green eyes hold his. Her voice is near a whisper. "Harold..."

He smiles at her, a one-sided attempt that still feels forced. He squeezes her hands.

"I think," Grace says then, "that you and John had a lot in common. More than you think."

It gives him pause, and then he laughs. It surprises him, his response, as much as it surprises her.

He kisses her cheek. Feeling her smile under his lips.

Selfless and selfish, he thinks.

Selfless and selfish, indeed.


	4. Chapter 4

_Present_

SAMEEN:

"Somewhere between here… and here."

Fusco allows an, "Okay," as he follows her finger on the map of Manhattan but his tone says otherwise. The look on his face.

A waitress swings by to refill their coffees and for a minute it's quiet. Dulled voices around them. Clinking forks and spoons.

"It's Reese, Lionel."

Outside, in the dim morning light, the rain is turning to a sleety snow.

"It's him." Shaw drums her fingers on the cover of the hospital chart now, its presence conspicuous on the diner's table.

"You're not supposed to take that," Fusco tells her. The top of the binder announces the hospital's ownership in large black type. "You know that, right?"

Shaw gives him a look.

"I'm not saying no. Alright? But, Jesus. It's been months, Shaw. And we haven't heard a thing…"

He trails off. He rubs the back of his neck.

"She says she might have seen him yesterday. Down in the Bowery area."

"Might have," the detective repeats. "The all-seeing superpower isn't sure?"

Her phone buzzes. They both look down.

 _Sixty-seven point two percent probability_.

Shaw rounds up. "Seventy percent chance."

"Seventy percent." Fusco leans back against the booth's upholstered backrest. He looks dazed.

Shaw snags a slice of toast, ripping it in half. Fusco's barely touched his food. "He's _stupid_ ," she says, "but he's not stupid." Reese was brilliant, really, even she would admit; clever and uniquely resourceful. All past criticisms aside, she hadn't met many better in the field. "He's hurt," she continues, having convinced herself of it, of his survival, "and he's hiding. I think he remembers the shadow map."

Fusco is staring at the binder.

Gently, very gently, he says, "Remember when you thought-" and she stops him.

"Don't."

He is quiet under her glare.

"Don't, Lionel." Shaw knows what he wants to say.

 _Remember when you thought_ she _was alive too, those first few weeks?_

 _Remember when you kept seeing her?_

Her eyes go to the window.

She doesn't say, _I still see her._

It's quiet again, for a minute or two.

"I just can't…"

She knows what he's going to say, before he even says it.

"I can't lose my partner twice."

"It's John," she says firmly.

He finally nods. "Okay. It's John."

* * *

 _2014_

JOHN:

Washington Square Park. Alive with Indian summer, chirping birds and blue skies.

When Reese sits across from Finch at the chess table, he gets a whiff of candied nuts from the vendor on the corner. He can't remember his last meal, he realizes, removing the sim card from his phone.

Bear whimpers.

Reese studies the chessboard, not looking at either of them. Finch has waited this time; the game pieces are untouched.

"How goes the day job, Detective Riley?"

"Personally I prefer my real job, Finch." He's black, but he doesn't care; he reaches for his King's pawn, moving it two spaces.

"Professor Whistler please."

"We're getting numbers again, Harold," Reese says.

Finch finally looks at him.

"We need to get back to work."

The older man's eyes go back to the chessboard, face tightening. Without pause, he mirrors Reese's move. Pawn to E5. He's annoyed. "I'm no longer your coworker, detective." His voice is firm. "I'm done taking orders from a computer. I thought I made that clear after it instructed us to kill a congressman."

"It also helped us to save Grace," Reese counters softly. Finch is watching him closely. "And now more lives need saving."

"I'm not sure that's what we're really doing. I've totaled the lives we've saved against deaths we've caused, and I'm afraid we've been operating at a loss. People who would be alive if we hadn't interfered."

Reese leans forward. "You don't know that," he says. "What would have happened if we hadn't intervened?"

"There is a larger power in play now," Finch responds sharply. "One that we are presently ill-equipped to face."

"Samaritan?"

Finch gives him a look. "Please. Be quiet."

Reese doesn't hide his disappointment. He leans back. "Here," he says anyway, reaching for the manila file folder on the latest number. He hands it across the game and Finch takes it with an abrupt motion. Laying it flat on the table and fanning his hands over it. "I could really use your input on this one." He holds Finch's gaze. _Please_.

Finch doesn't blink.

Reese is thinking he's out of luck, that Finch won't budge, when the older man narrows his eyes slightly and then looks down at the folder. He opens it.

Okay.

"Ali Hasan," Reese says. Finch is studying the photograph. "Owns an electronics shop in the Bronx. He's good with computers. Kind of like you, Harold."

Finch's eyes snap up to meet his, and Reese knows what's coming.

"If you, or Sameen, or anyone else attempt to intervene with these numbers… you will surely find yourselves dead."

"We have to do something."

"We have no resources, John. The library's gone."

"So we'll get another place."

"Don't you understand they're always watching?" The words are whispered but sharp, and Reese finds himself looking away. "We can't even talk on the telephone. There is no sanctuary. You can't be the man in the suit. You're a cop. I'm a professor. That's just the way it is."

There's quiet then, and when Reese raises his eyes, Finch is studying him. "We don't need jobs, Harold," he says softly. Sincerely. "We need a purpose."

"The world has changed, John." Finch's tone is gentler now, but Reese knows he's done. "I'm sorry." He gets up before Reese can respond.

Reese stares at the chessboard.

"Bear, liggen." Finch is pressing the leash onto the table top. Waiting for Reese to take it. He taps the leather strap once, and Reese reaches for it silently. "For the time being, he'll be happier with you."

A pause.

"If it's not about helping the numbers anymore," Reese tries, "then what?"

Finch turns and stares at the security camera mounted above them on a post. There's a brief silence, and then Finch faces him. His face is tightly drawn.

"It's about survival, John."

He departs without a goodbye.

* * *

 _Present_

Reese wakes lying on the cement floor of an abandoned building. He aches.

His rib cage rises and falls with effort. When he sits up, another effort, something scurries across the floor. He stares for a moment. Despondent.

He should be dead.

Reese scrubs at his face, feeling a wheeze make its way from his chest. He coughs and rights himself.

It's not the first morning he wakes up disappointed to be alive.

When he exits onto the street, pigeons flutter and purr. He's a man of purpose today. Of discipline.

Of time travel.

"John?"

He imagines it's Tuesday, or maybe Sunday.

He's not even sure if this night belongs to the same morning.

"Johnny."

Looking up. The old man from the other day is staring at him from across the bar. In front of him, his usual: whiskey, neat. Untouched. Reese squints at it, vision crossing, blurred amber swimming in and out of focus. He reaches for the glass, swallowing back a generous gulp. Warmth fills his stomach, a sensation of total well-being.

"—need that?"

When he looks up, the man – Mike – is still watching him.

"What?" Reese sets the tumbler down, leaning his elbows forward on the bar top. He clasps his hands behind his neck.

"I said, are you sure you need that?"

 _Yes_ , he thinks, but he says nothing. He's left alone then, for a little while, but it's a quiet night, and before the glass is done, Mike is back.

"Look, kid," Mike says, leaning forward so that his voice carries over the tinny music from the sound system. "I don't know you from Adam. But since you're becoming a regular-"

Reese huffs a breath.

"-it becomes my business."

The Rolling Stones. Reese hadn't been listening before, but he rests his head in hand now and quietly hums under his breath.

"Mr. Reese."

He lifts his head.

He stares at Mike. Squinting now, eyeing the older man suspiciously.

The address of _Mr. Reese_ , spoken aloud. He feels like his insides are stretching. Pulling.

Snapping.

"What did you call me?"

"A knucklehead," Mike says, shaking his head. Pulling back the near empty whiskey tumbler, the glass scraping against the worn wood.

Even at that, Reese frowns. _Knucklehead_ , he thinks.

His dad used to call him that.

"No," he says, stopping himself. "Right then. Before. Mister…"

"Mysteries?" Mike finishes, a question of _did you not hear me_ in his tone. "I said-" and he pulls the tumbler further from reach as Reese's hand moves for it, "- that's just one of life's little mysteries."

Reese frowns, not bothering to ask _what_ was. He's off kilter now, his thoughts in a jumble, still staring at Mike.

He shakes his head.

He just-

Mike leans in again. "Look. We don't choose our time. I know it doesn't make sense, you being here and them not-"

Reese stares above the older man's head now, to the line of bottles behind the bar.

Them not.

"- but we don't get to choose."

He needs another drink.

"You need a purpose."

"I don't-"

"C'mon, Johnny."

A moment passes, a staring contest of sorts. Reese removes his baseball cap, running fingers through his tangled hair, and then places it back, pulling it low.

Purpose.

Right.

He takes his drink back this time, swallowing the remainder of the whiskey.

There's a pause, a break in the music. Mike has stepped away to serve another patron, but he's back as the notes of the next tune fill the dull silence of the room.

"So who were you protecting this time?"

"What?"

Mike nods downward and Reese follows his line of sight to the bruised and broken skin across his knuckles.

He opens and closes his hand slowly. Absently, testing the digits.

He has no idea.

"Johnny?"

"Yeah."

"I'm cutting you off."

* * *

FUSCO:

"This has gotta stop."

Shaw challenges him with an annoyed look, pulling loose the balaclava she'd adorned for the job. You called _me_ , he wants to say.

Sirens in the distance. He smells smoke; he glances to the townhouse she'd vacated.

"Fire?"

"Smoke grenade."

"I see."

She turns with a dismissive gesture. Glancing up and down the street.

Weeks had passed, closing in on another month. Each day she was a little harder to reach. A little more reckless in her approach to justice.

If you could call it justice.

"They're both in there," she says. "Second floor."

"Alive?"

A look.

"Shaw. What are you doing?"

There's a pause. There's more to the question beneath the surface and they both know it. When she moves to leave, he grabs her arm.

She shakes him off.

"Helping the numbers."

"Well if you could help the numbers with a little more… finesse-"

"Finesse, Lionel? You wanna talk about finesse?"

"Detective Fusco?"

He turns. Exchanges words with a rookie respondent.

He looks back.

She's gone.

* * *

JOHN:

"I came here to drink. I didn't ask for advice."

"Well, kid, you keep coming back."

Reese hums a noncommittal response into his glass.

"And as far as I'm concerned-"

"Mike."

A look.

Mike's quiet for a moment, a palpable silence like he's thinking about whether to continue.

He doesn't.

"We were trying to save people," Reese says later, when Mike has swung back to his side of the bar.

Grey eyebrows rise.

"But instead…" Reese stops. Takes a swallow from his drink. "I'm afraid we've been operating at a loss."

Mike's smile is sympathetic, but there's a hint, in the way it doesn't reach his eyes, that he isn't buying it.

Sure enough, after a short pause: "You buy that?"

Reese circles the ice cubes in his glass. While he's looking down, a business card appears in front of him. Mike taps it as he sets it down.

"What's this?"

"A job."

Something's written on its back, but the penned words blur together. Reese cocks his head to the side, staring down at it. "Look-"

Mike holds up a hand. _Listen._ "Look at me," he says, and he waits until Reese is looking up again before continuing. "It's barely afternoon. You're on your second drink. You've been wearing the same ragged clothes for days-"

"Mike."

Mike gives him a look. "I'm not saying you have to put on a suit-"

Reese coughs back his next swallow and Mike gives him a curious squint before continuing.

"A job's a job. Yeah. I get that. But you need something. Whatever it is. A reason to get up in the morning."

Reese takes another swallow from his glass. "I've got my reasons."

"Yeah?"

"Mm."

"I gotta tell you, Johnny. Drinking yourself to death isn't a good start."

At that, Reese gives the old man a final look, a shake of the head, and stands up. He knows to pause before moving. Letting gravity stabilize, all the while holding Mike's stare.

Of all the talk of purpose. Of reasons.

"You remind me of someone," Reese tells him. He takes the card.

"Yeah? You ever listen to him?"

Reese scoffs. "I did," he says. "Yeah." He smiles broadly, bitterly, and stretches out his arms. "Look where it got me."

Mike doesn't respond. He looks disappointed.

Reese turns and makes toward the exit.

Mike calls after him. "Johnny."

Reese pauses, but doesn't turn.

Over the tinny music, he hears, "Be present."

"What?"

"You heard me."

The door swings shut with a bang as the cold wind on the street hits him.

* * *

HAROLD:

"I really wish you'd carry a phone!" Grace accuses in lieu of a greeting, finding him at half past. She laughs though, a soft monosyllabic note that is all at once familiar and foreign.

"I know, I know." Finch raises his hands in mock surrender and offers a smile. "Mi dispiace. I'm on time, no?" He consults the watch on his left wrist and settles his right hand on her back as they move to walk. The sun is just setting; the world is bright and shadowed all at once.

"You are." Her shoes tap the cobblestone as they walk. "It's just- oh!" She interrupts herself as they pass by a gelataria. "Dinner first or gelato?"

Finch arches a brow in amusement ( _really_?) and she laughs.

"I don't know why I ask," she says, pulling him into the queue.

They stand in quiet then, a lull, couples around them chatting and animated. Finch hums to himself and is about to force words when-

"I have to go to New York."

She announces this suddenly. Apologetically.

"What?"

Grace turns to face him. She smiles hopefully.

She's beautiful.

"I… The collection I sent over to Daria Gallery- I didn't know if it fit, exactly, but-"

Daria.

New York.

Finch stops hearing her, a whirring hum rushing into his ears. His heart suddenly swelling with each beat, larger, and larger, and pressing into his ribs-

"Harold?"

"Wow." New York. He masks his panic with a smile, raising his eyebrows. "New York. Grace, wow." And because he doesn't trust his smile, his words, he kisses her cheek. "That's amazing. Which- the…?"

"The landscapes… the darker ones. With the birds."

"Ah… yes." The birds. Yes. And again, "Grace. That's amazing."

Her smile widens. "Yeah? You think?"

He shifts his feet, stepping forward with the line. "Yes," he confirms. It is, it is. "Incredible… rallegramenti! That's… When do we leave?"

She looks surprised.

"What?"

"I just… Harold, I know it's a big trip...-"

"Darling," he says softly, "of course I'll be there."

He didn't think it was possible for her smile to grow larger.

"Two weeks," she says, and he nods.

He always knew he would go back.

He just didn't think it would be so soon.

"Two weeks."

"Desidera?"

Finch looks up. They've made it to the beginning of the line. He nods to Grace, who orders a lemon.

And then… "Amarena," he says, "per favore," and Grace glances to him in surprise.

Change begets change, he thinks, and raises his eyebrows ( _why not?_ ).

"Grazie," he says, taking his dessert and change.

They walk.

"Well?" she asks, taking a bite of her lemon.

He takes a taste, pausing with the spoon. "Mm. Might be my new favorite."

"Yeah?" Grace gives him an amused smile. "I didn't even know you liked cherries."

"Nor I," he says, taking her arm as they cross the street. "Want to try that new trattoria?"

"Mm," she agrees.

When they discard their cups into a trash can near the restaurant, she doesn't notice that his his barely touched.


	5. Chapter 5

_2016_

JOHN:

There's a hardcover book on the blue plastic seating of the subway car. He picks it up as he sits, turning it over in his hands as Bear's wet nose pushes against him in greeting.

 _Sailing Alone Around the World._

"What's this?"

Finch turns, a swivel of the office chair, and says, "Found it the other day." He smiles, a soft, distant smile, and continues, "For when you feel like sailing away."

It's been years, since that conversation, since talk of escape, and Reese tilts his head. It's been years since _books_.

"Is this a hint, Finch?"

The older man's mouth twists with amusement. "I hope not." He looks tired. Around the eyes, the worn out pinch in his expression.

It's been a crappy year.

Reese looks back down at the book, turning it again in his hands.

"Thank you," he says quietly, and his phone buzzes. He slips it from his pocket.

Lionel.

"I have to…-"

Finch waves him off. _It's nothing_ , the gesture says. He's already turning back to his own work, side-by-side screens of tangled algorithms and scripts. Reese stares at the back of his boss's head and then back down at the novel, the weight of it feeling heavy in his hands.

He misses the Library, suddenly. The books. The simplicity he didn't know they had.

But Reese keeps those thoughts locked away in a box inside his head, one he tries to only open once and awhile, usually when he has a drink to accompany them.

"Harold," he says, getting to his feet, "Thanks."

A pause, and Finch taps at a few keys before shifting his shoulders slightly to meet Reese's eye when he says, "You're welcome."

"And if one day, I don't come back-" Reese holds the book up, smiling, aiming for smug. "You'll know."

Finch raises a solitary eyebrow, and turns back to his work. "Not on my watch," he murmurs, just loud enough to be heard.

Reese grins.

It's months later, when Shaw returns, when the world's axis begins to drift into an even deadlier tilt, that Reese comes across _Sailing Alone_ and stares at its cover.

He stares at it numbly and then tosses it back into a drawer when Lionel swings around his desk, earning a curious frown but no questions asked.

"We've got trouble."

"Of course we do," Reese says, rising to his feet without hesitation. Grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair.

He kicks the drawer shut as they leave and doesn't give it another thought. Not when Finch's number comes up. Not in Washington.

Not back in New York.

2016 is full of shit, and really, Reese should learn to stop being surprised by disappointment.

* * *

 _Present_

HAROLD:

Truth be told, two weeks and a nine hour transatlantic flight was hardly time to prepare.

The flight's initial descent, signaled by chimes and a lit seatbelt sign, has his stomach churning. A cold sweat on the back of his neck.

"I'm nervous too," Grace says at one point during the landing, reaching for his hand. He had leaned his head back, closing his eyes. Breathing.

Finch only says, "I'm alright." He opens his eyes.

It's then with feet on the ground, waiting on luggage, that he feels a vague sense of the paranoia return. Watching faces, looking for tells.

They should have flown private. Avoided commercial.

They needn't have even checked a bag, come to think of it. It was only a week.

He hears the shrill sound of a pay telephone in the distance and forces himself to just, stop.

"Hm," Grace muses. He turns and she's staring at her phone, worrying her bottom lip.

When she holds it out to him to read, he barely hears her question.

"Did you tell someone we were coming?"

 _Welcome home_.

An unknown number.

"I thought…" Grace trails off. Her expression is confused, verging on concerned, as she waits for his response.

"Perhaps Daria," he offers. Knowing it's not. He pauses, raising his gaze to meet hers. Turning a corner of his mouth up into a reassuring smile.

At that, Grace relaxes, seeming to accept it. She nods once and says, "I know you're right. It's just… Sometime I worry, with everything you've told me…"

Finch is silent, scanning the oh so slow carousel for their luggage. He thinks he spots it, is hopeful, but no.

Again, the shrill ring of a distant telephone.

"But it's over now." Grace finishes the thought for him, finishes what she clearly hopes he will say. "Harold?"

"It is," he agrees, and then, with inner thanks to a higher power, he spots their suitcase. He steps away, his limp exaggerated from the lengthy flight, and knows she is staring after him.

He makes a point to be nonchalant on his return. Conversation turns to dinner, to forgotten favorites like Arthur's, and Emilio's. To dessert and coffee spots of years past.

He does a good job, he thinks, as words turn to laughter in the cab.

" _-yes_ ," Grace is saying, through a second bout of giggles. "They gave us free dessert for that, remember?"

"I do, I do." And he's laughing now too, hardly needing to force it, because he also remembers how good it was. How good it was, it is, to be in Manhattan with Grace.

* * *

JOHN:

Creaking wood. Waves lapping against the hull. For a moment, he's eleven years old. Playing hooky, hiding out on _Second Wind_.

He lies still now, years from truancy, and stares at an oak paneled ceiling. The gulls are silent, the only noises that of twilight. A faint knocking of the other moored boats and the creaks and squeaks of ropes and timbers.

It's earlier than he needs to rise, but sleep doesn't return, so he rolls into a seated position and says, "Okay," softly.

The tiny worker's kitchen isn't empty. He finds Greta, grey hair a cloud framing her ruddy cheeks, her moody scowl as intact as it was yesterday.

"Greta."

The resident bookkeeper, Greta. She doesn't like him. She doesn't trust him, his vague story, or the way he'd bought the sailboat, a handyman's special, on his third day there.

"John."

He leaves it at that.

It's been two weeks since he'd ventured down to the marina, following Mike's business card, sobering up for the interview. The job wasn't much: mooring boats, general maintenance, cargo loading. Keeping the yachters happy.

He wasn't quite sure how he landed it.

"You sleepin' on her?"

Reese looks up from a pour of coffee. He'd been eyeing its consistency: if Greta made it, he knows it's going to taste like mud.

"The ol' raft you got yourself," she clarifies, nodding in the direction the sailboat was docked. Her voice is a low rasp, abused vocal chords from years of cigarettes. "That's where you sleep?"

"Some nights."

She seems to digest this, not without distaste, then informs him of the morning's shipment.

"Boss wants you to handle it," she says cryptically as she leaves. "Just you."

Reese stares after her, then slips out a flask when he's alone. A small pour of liquor, just enough to ride out any headaches. The tremors.

"Just you," he repeats in a murmur, slipping the flask back into his pocket.

"Running drugs," Mike repeats later.

"And guns." Reese swallows back his whiskey slowly and sets the glass down. Mike is drinking with him tonight. The older man sips the amber from his own glass and watches Reese silently. "In another life," Reese says, "I would do something."

"Another life?"

"Mm."

"Not this one." When Reese waves his hand absently, Mike prods. "So you're just gonna to let it be."

"I didn't sign up for drug busts and arms trafficking, Mike. As much fun as saving the world is… I left all that behind."

"Kid, that's life. We don't 'sign up' for anything."

Reese gives him a side eye over another swallow. _Thanks for that_.

Mike stays silent, but raises a single brow. The look on his face- _you're wrong, but I'm not going to argue with you_ -it suddenly reminds Reese of Finch.

He shakes his head, pushing back the sharpness that slides up into his chest.

"Yeah, well," he covers. "Shipment's done and out. Sorry, Mike."

Mike doesn't respond. He crosses to the other side of the bar. It's near closing and there are no other patrons. He wipes down the counter with a damp cloth.

Reese circles the ice cubes in his drink and then sets the glass down again.

In another life, he and Finch would have interfered. Prevented the downstream violence.

In another life, he might have cared. Might have thought he could make some type of difference.

Mike is back. He holds up the handle of liquor, a question, and Reese gives a small nod.

"I could call it in," Reese says after a moment, watching Mike pour.

It's not that he cares.

Mike says nothing, but there's a small smile on the edge of his lips as he pushes two fingers worth of whiskey forward.

* * *

SAMEEN:

Uptown. There is a couple at the end of the bar who are becoming loud. Rowdy. She eyes them. Stares at the girl, a brunette with long hair and a leather jacket.

A minute ticks by, and she thinks that in another life, another dimension-

The girl laughs, loudly.

It's different.

When her phone buzzes, Shaw glares at it, but swigs her beer and swipes the screen.

"What."

" _Well, hey. I'm fine, thanks, how are you?_ "

"Hi, Lionel."

" _Busy?_ "

She wipes condensation from the beer bottle with her thumb and then slowly starts to pick at its label. She can hear the muffled sound of a radio and intermittent honks through the connection. He's driving. "No," she admits.

" _Wanna play cop?_ "

"Depends." Shaw looks back down the bar. The couple is heading out. "Yes."

" _You alright?"_

"Fine." He's been offering her odd jobs, here and there, on the force. Mostly covert busts, mostly at night. Things Reese would have helped him with. Things he didn't need her help with.

Shaw knows it's a distraction, a filler for the breaks between the numbers. He's worried about her.

She signals the bartender for her tab.

"I'm in," she says, sliding off the barstool. Shrugging into her jacket, she tosses some bills on the counter and heads to the door. She's bored, anyway. "When and where?"

* * *

JOHN:

He hears the wail of a siren. It's distant, almost inaudible, but his ears are primed for it even after an evening of drinking with Mike.

Reese groans as the sound grows louder, rolling onto his stomach. Ignoring the pull of still healing wounds. He feels the gentle rocking of the boat, the sway married with the evening's whiskey spins.

The wailing blares and then, suddenly, stops.

Reese gets a feeling.

He's still drunk, he tells himself, barefoot on the docks. Slick metal ramps. He moves through moonlit narrows, fingers tracing rope-lined pilings. Careful to avoid the one security camera surveying the marina's going-ons.

Blue and red lights flicker across the main office.

Reese watches the shadows. He's thinking that he should probably head back to the boat (or better yet, away from the marina altogether) when a movement flutters in the corner of his eye.

A pint-sized Batman.

"Russell," he growls, catching a skinny arm.

"Aagh-"

Reese clamps a hand over the imminent scream and receives a bite to his palm for the effort. Muffled squealing still too loud for his liking, he hikes the seven-year-old up, back to his chest, the kid writhing violently as something clatters to the ground, something light and maybe plastic lost from the child's clutches.

He steps back into the shadows with a hissed, "Hey," as sneaker-clad feet kick outward, catching nothing in their attempts. Reese feels the pounding of the kid's heart under his arm and repeats himself less harshly. "Hey," he says. "Russ."

"Mmph!"

"It's John." The kids wriggles violently again and he adds in a whisper, "I kicked you off my boat three times this week."

"Mm-ph-lab-phlobt!"

Reese knows there's something in there about the boat not being _his_ , you see, but he can feel the small sag of relief as the bony frame leans into him, knowing its captor is not a complete stranger after all. "You done?"

"Mmmph-mm," comes the promise, but the kid twists again in the hold even as his head is bobbing up and down, so he's not, quite, and Reese can't blame him. He slowly lowers his hand from the child's mouth but keeps his other arm locked tightly. He squats down though, so Russell can at least feel the earth below him.

"It's midnight," Reese whispers. He hears some voices from the parking area. A car door slamming. Once. Twice.

"It's two a.m."

"Potato, potahto."

Russell twists again in the restraint and Reese releases him, though he keeps a hold on the back of the kid's cape. He flicks the bat mask up so that it's more hat than mask, the kid's full face showing, cheeks flushed from the brief struggle.

" _Hey_." Russell frowns. "I'm Batman."

"Help's already here," Reese counters. "Besides, you forgot your armor." He eyes the kid's blue jeans and red t-shirt but doesn't make a comment. Russell glowers at him.

"You're drunk," he says quietly.

Reese looks away, watching the flicker of lights, allowing the comment. He is. He can't deny it. "You scram," he says, watching shadowed figures moving at the outskirts of the marina, "and I won't tell your dad you were out here."

Russell puffs himself up. "I'll tell my dad on _you_."

Reese adjusts baseball cap, rubbing the back of his neck. Russell's father owns the marina. He hears a third door slam and shifts in his crouched position. It's starting to hurt. "Does your dad know you're Batman?"

Russell's eyes are bright, watching the police strobes with growing interest. He absently steps out a little farther, almost into the light, and Reese tugs him back. He receives a glare for the effort, and preemptively snags the boy's arm again.

"Alright," he says, "bedtime," and holds his grip as Russell tries to twist away. Reese hears the creak of someone's weight on neighboring decking and instinctively pulls the boy closer. He takes a limping side step, pulling them closer to the building.

He needs to move, now, and get the kid out of there. If this _is_ a bust, there aren't enough vessels in the marina to convince himself that his might not be boarded. The fourth amendment didn't apply to boats.

"Alright, Batman." Reese keeps his voice low, maintaining a hold on the kid's arm and taking another side step. He gives Russell a warning squeeze, starting to wish he had all his wits about him. He makes up his mind. "We do this my way. Got it?"

Russell tugs his mask back down and gives a silent nod.

* * *

SAMEEN:

She moves through the marina silently, scanning the docks for any movement. She can already feel the adrenaline of the bust starting to wear off.

It's a large harbor but it feels abandoned, only a dozen or so moored boats. The pilings are sparsely occupied, the docks left neat and tidy for the winter. She guesses the majority of vessels had been winterized and hauled off somewhere else for the season.

Choppy waves lap at the shore. Something creaks and whines, a flag snapping in the wind at the top of its pole.

" _Smells fishy_."

Shaw shakes her head, hiding a smirk though she knows the Machine has no vantage of her here. There's only one surveillance camera in the whole boatyard: it looked to be keeping its eye on the main cargo and freight areas.

"You've got jokes now, huh?"

The Machine chuckles.

It gets her every time, that laugh. Shaw had asked it to stop once, when she first heard it, but that was almost worse. The utter absence of her.

It's sick, really. But she didn't complain when it started again.

" _I think you've been made_."

Shaw spins in time to see a blur of shadowed motion across the marina. She jogs forward with a curse, one hand going for her gun, the other speed dialing Fusco.

It's too dark to make out any detail. She's staring at a silhouetted figure one second, and then, nothing. The play of moonlight, the blue and red strobe lights of the cruisers around back.

Nothing.

She slows, and then the figure is back, as though taking a second look itself, a double take. Shaw swears it's staring at her, though she can't be more than a shadow herself.

An odd feeling washes through her.

"Shaw? You okay?"

The figure is gone again (was that the flutter of a cape?) and she jerks around. She finds Fusco staring at her from a few yards away. He holds his phone up in question.

"Your bust's a bust, Lionel." She shakes her head, aggravated, glancing back in the direction of the lost shadow. They're too far to pursue, really. She needs to let it go.

"You see something?"

She's looking back in the direction of the figure.

"Shaw?"

"Nothing," she says. "A ghost."


	6. Chapter 6

_Present_

HAROLD:

"It's perfect," Grace breathes, and he smiles, seeing the joy in her face as she floats around the gallery and takes it all in. She pauses, pressing her palms together as she surveys the expansive display: the tall, brightly lit white walls, the sharply framed visions of her work.

"What do you think?"

He raises his eyebrows as she twirls back toward him, her question echoing in the open room.

"Spectacular."

She beams.

There's another artist on display in the smaller gallery room at the back. Finch wanders there as Grace moves to speak with one the docents regarding a final detail.

Paper and wires, feathers and steel. Wings stretch above his head, crowding the small exhibit space. Angel wings, he thinks at first, stepping around the side of the display. Plumage red and black and white and grey.

The second piece of the exhibit hangs from the ceiling; paper coated wires and naked steel. He glances at the label.

 _Starling Murmuration (2017)._ _E. Dashwood.  
Steel and copper wire._

His cell phone vibrates.

Finch knows before he slides the phone out from his vest. He feels the tingle down his spine, the prickle on the back of his neck.

Turning slowly, he makes eye contact with the small security camera mounted in the left hand corner of the room.

"It was you," he realizes aloud. His phone buzzes again.

 _I wasn't sure you would accept it._

Finch looks back to the camera, frowning. "Accept…"

 _The invitation_ , comes the next text.

And then, _I thought her work would complement the exhibit… spectacularly._

"Harold?"

 _I've missed you._

Finch jerks the phone back into a pocket, pivoting to face Grace. He's saved by the exhibit: her eyes are raised upward, taking in the monstrosity of the giant winged birds.

"Wow," she says, as he swallows and composes himself. He takes her arm, leading her back into the main room. To her own exhibit: abstracted landscapes, silhouetted birds.

"This is wow," he murmurs, ignoring the vibration of his phone, linking her tighter.

* * *

 _2013_

JOHN:

Chirping crickets. The hoot of an owl. Reese recognizes the song of the great horned, a familiar _hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo._ He leans against his rented town car and shifts weight into his heels, wiggling the chilled toes in his boots. Temperatures had dropped with the sun.

He scans the woods as the leaves rustle in the breeze. Then, a snapping of twigs. He flips off the safety on his gun. Raising the weapon and standing up straight.

Finch is in his ear. Reese speaks softly in return, moving away from his car with cautious steps.

The sound of another gun's hammer being pulled back. Cocked and ready. He closes his eyes.

" _Mr. Reese?_ "

The breeze flutters the leaves in the sudden stillness.

" _Mr. Reese, are you there?_ "

"Gotta call you back, Finch." Reese raises his gun hand up, slipping his pointer from the trigger. A surrender. He'd been right. "Hello, Shaw," he says evenly, feeling her approach from behind. Allowing himself to be disarmed. He lowers his now empty hand and turns around, slowly, facing her and the pistol aimed at his chest. She stares at him, darker than the night. "I thought I just might find you here."

"And you decided to drop in for a visit?" She's unimpressed.

"Stakeouts can get a little tedious."

"And what made you think I wanted the company? The time I shot you, or the time I ditched you at the cemetery?"

Touché.

"I'm persistent." He fights back a smirk. He's sure she notices.

"Or maybe you just can't take a hint."

He holds her stare, tilting his head slightly.

She lowers her gun. Waiting. So he looks toward the house, visible through the woods. A man and a woman, older, settling in next to each other in the living room. He nods his head in their direction.

"Darlene and Evan Cole. Your former partner's parents."

"Dead partner."

He ignores the correction. "The government framed Cole as a domestic terrorist," he says. "I thought you might come back here to set the record straight."

"How'd you figure that?"

Because they're not too different, she and him. He keeps his expression carefully neutral. "It's what I'd do."

She blinks and looks away. "Control killed their son," she says quietly. "They didn't need to take their memory of him. Even the CIA wouldn't stoop that low. They'd just... sweep their mess under the rug and give him a star on the wall."

"Your former employers killed Cole for discovering the truth, and nothing's stopping them from killing his parents, too." Reese takes a step closer to her. "But you already know this. That's why you're out here and not in there."

Shaw looks at him like she wants to say something, but hesitates. Her next words shut him down instead. "Next time you want some fresh air... pick a different spot." She gives him a pointed look and moves past to leave.

"A friend once told me-" Reese turns around toward Shaw, and she's stilled, at least. "-in our line of work, we walk in the dark."

She stares back at him. Silent. Her mouth pressed tight.

"Doesn't mean we have to walk in it alone."

* * *

 _Present_

Reese comes awake in the dark and lays there blinking. His heart thudding through him into the worn mattress. He slows his breathing to match the rocking of the water and stares at the ceiling, chilled by sweat soaked sheets.

It's taken him a little over a week to sober up to a point where he trusts himself. He's mostly past the sickness, the tremors… but the dreams are still vivid. Haunted, bloody, and all too real. It's enough to give it up, almost, but he holds out. Harder still: he doesn't see Mike at all, the temptation of being in a bar, around the luring comfort of spirits, too great. He needs to have all his faculties intact.

It's at the end of that week, sober and without a plan, that he follows her.

Reese keeps his distance, blending into traffic on a motorcycle that he digs out of storage, a full face helmet lending him anonymity. It's the furthest he's been from the marina in over a month. He follows her, and he concludes three things. One, she's still working the numbers. Two, and this makes him smirk, she's still staying at the safe houses. And three, she doesn't give a damn about her personal safety.

Reese keeps his distance until the third day, and would have still, if not for that third fact: she doesn't give a damn about her personal safety.

So he finds himself there with a once-armed guy in sleeper hold, his still healing torso arguing the strain as he lowers the unconscious form to the ground, and he's intending to slip out the back of the mid-reno tenement building when a voice too near stops him dead in his tracks.

And he turns, slowly, and looks straight at her. At her hands that hang awkwardly at her sides. Her fingers are trembling.

"Reese?" she says finally. Her eyes look black.

She is rough and sharp and dark and sad.

"Shaw."

He catches her fist right before it lands him with a solid hook. He keeps his expression neutral, holding on to her balled-up hand for second too long before she wrenches it away.

She stares at him, straight faced and rigid, examining him like a bug under a microscope, to the point he gets uncomfortable. She mutters something that sounds like _I told him_ , as her face goes through a myriad of feelings _._ In the end, she settles for, "How...?"

"I think I only have one life left," Reese says finally, falling short with the humor. He steps away from the prone figure he took out a moment ago and sees Shaw frown at his uneven gait. His voice is low. Soft from disuse. "You missed this one."

She blinks. Glances at the unconscious body and back to him.

He's not sure where to go, now.

"The missile," she starts.

There's a sick feeling in his stomach. "Can we not…" Reese cut off.

And then: "Finch?"

His stomach turns again. She must see something in his face because she nods slightly.

"Right. Okay. I thought maybe the two of you had some secret escape plan together."

He takes another step backward, distancing them. "Shaw…"

"Why?" she pushes.

He tilts his head in question.

"You're… well, shit, Reese, here you are. _Alive_. All this time. Didn't you even wonder…" she trails off. Shaking her head, her expression darkening. "You left us."

He wants to argue. The truth was, he hadn't planned on this afterlife. And they were okay, weren't they? Better off, really, as far as history goes with those he'd come to friend. To love. "I couldn't..." Well, that's not right. "I'm still trying to figure it out, Shaw."

Her face is as unreadable as it ever was.

"I've gotta get back…"

"Back?"

He's silent. He shrugs his shoulders slightly, half in defeat.

"Right." She studies him. "You're not even carrying a phone, are you?" As if on cue her own buzzes, and she pulls it from the back of her jeans. Reese can tell by her expression as she looks down at the message and then back to him.

Fusco.

"Let me tell him."

She takes a moment to decide and then allows it with a small nod.

* * *

SAMEEN:

Over beers that turn to whiskey, Reese reaches out and traces the line of the unfamiliar tattoo she knows he'd spotted earlier: an arrow, encircling her wrist.

She lets him, though the touch from him is unnerving. Fighting an urge to pull back her arm, she instead reads the labels of the liquor bottles lining the shelf behind the bar.

Jameson. Knob Creek. Hennessy _-_

The touch is gone and Reese sits back, taking a swallow from his glass. Setting it back on the bartop, ice cubes clinking.

She looks at him, but he doesn't ask.

Reese always had a way of taking things and just accepting them.

Her phone buzzes. Looking down, she reads the text and shakes her head slightly. _Guess you find what you're looking for when you stop actually looking, right, sweetie?_

She smirks.

"Shaw?"

She looks up. Reese is watching her, the corners of his mouth turned down.

"You talk to her," he realizes.

"I do."

Reese holds her gaze, just for a second, then looks away like he wants to say something but doesn't. She watches his profile. He's different. Not just the worn jeans and the dirty grey t-shirt, the old baseball cap. A clash to the old black and white. It's something more.

There's a tiredness to his voice when he says, "I asked her to leave me alone."

"Why?"

He takes a swallow of his drink and spares no more than a side glance to her.

He's not going to answer that.

She has an idea, anyway. For all of Reese's mystery, he's also pretty transparent.

"It seems silly," she says, "to hold a grudge against a machine."

He lifts his eyebrows and stiffens slightly but says nothing.

"She respected your privacy," she adds, which he also ignores.

A few drinks later, Shaw welcomes the feeling of heat and well-being. The whiskey dulling her sharp edges, filling the hole.

It's quiet now, most of the other patrons have left. There are about five people in the place, counting them and the bartender.

When it's been quiet long enough, she circles her glass and takes a swallow. "We're all just shapes," she says. There's a silence as Reese regards her. She feels stupid suddenly, saying it aloud.

"Shapes," he repeats.

She's not sure why she even said it.

She signals the bartender for another. She might as well welcome tomorrow's hangover.

"Wait- The arrow." Reese glances to her wrist and she curls it in toward herself subconsciously. She'd almost forgotten his perception. He waits. "No?"

"Something like that." She shakes her head. "Forget it. Never mind."

"A straight line," he says a moment later, and she says, "Never mind," again in a darker tone.

"What would I be," he says later, and she wishes he would just drop it, "if I were a shape?"

She looks at him. The faded laugh lines that seem incongruous to his stoic facade. The tiny scar, ever so faint, along his right cheekbone. It's partner lining his chin.

"A square."

"A square," he repeats.

She nods, smiling slightly, looking away. Working her jaw slightly.

"Noted." He rises from his bar stool. For a minute she thinks she's offended him, but he's only taking a leak. She watches his gait on the way to the men's room, the hitch in his step. A handicap to his otherwise smooth demeanor.

"Pool?" he offers when he returns. The tables are abandoned.

She wants to ask him about his injuries. If he's even tried rehab.

"If you're ready to lose," she says instead. Getting to her feet.

"Challenge accepted." He racks the balls and swivels them into position.

* * *

HAROLD:

"I'm starting to think that we should try new places."

Finch swallows back a sip of Rosé (ordered from nostalgia and sure to be too expensive for its vintage) and slants the side of his mouth into a smile at Grace's words. He'd been thinking the same. "Different vibe."

"Different _place_."

It's the second day of hitting up familiar haunts and one thing is becoming inarguably clear: it's a mistake to try and recreate memories.

"Perhaps we keep with appetizers?" he offers. The house music almost censures his words, but Grace is nodding in agreement.

"There's that French place we passed… one avenue over?"

He nods. Yes. Somewhere that won't take another page of memory and scribble over it.

It's significantly harder to pretend, he's realizing, back here in the States. If Italy were the honeymoon- even with its slow courtship-then, well...

"Everything okay?"

He looks up.

"Harold." It's hard to hear her over the beat of the song. "You keep looking at your phone. And not with a… I don't know. You just have this worried look on your face."

As charged.

Finch sets said offense on the tabletop, next to the silverware, and splays his fingers out beside it. He's not sure why, back here in New York, he's even carrying it.

 _I miss you_ , the text reads.

And something about the way Grace is looking at him, so steadily, so unalarmed, when the truth was that things were still coming down and coming apart-

"She misses me," he blurts out. "It," he corrects, and then back to, " _She_. The system I built, it misses me."

Grace's mouth makes a perfect 'oh'; her brow furrows slightly.

"The Machine."

"Yes." He drums his fingers on the table. He can't stop looking at the phone, even though he should be watching Grace.

The can of worms is opened.

"I never intended… it shouldn't-it _can't_ miss things. It can't feel loss."

He looks up in time to see Grace's expression change, soften.

"You miss _it_ , Harold."

There's no accusation in her voice but he feels himself going on automatic defense. "I don't-" he says, staring back at her now. But the truth is, Grace isn't wrong, oh God, she isn't wrong. He sputters a little.

"And even if you don't," she continues, "I think maybe you miss what it all was. That's fair, Harold. It wasn't just a machine. It was Nathan, and Detective Carter. Samantha Groves…" She had listened, really listened to what he had pieced her over the course of months. "It was John Reese."

"Grace."

She leans forward, capturing his wrist gently.

"It isn't going to get any easier," she whispers, even with the mind-searing house music, she whispers, "if you don't try."

"I'm _trying_ ," he breathes.

She shakes her head. "You're trying to leave it all behind."

* * *

JOHN:

When the pub door swings open, he can recognize Fusco's shadowed figure even through the shadowed light.

He readies himself, watching the detective scan the bar. Works his jaw and looks up with a steady, indifferent expression.

For a moment-the tick of the second when the detective makes him-the world hangs.

There's a muffled curse and Reese is yanked forward by the front of his shirt, rough but not forceful; he finds himself locked in the vise of a bear hug that lifts his boots off the floor.

His healing ribs complain, knitted skin stretches and he is certain he will suffocate.

He feels himself smiling.

"Son of a bitch," repeats the voice, familiar now, and Reese squeezes his eyes shut.

Fusco curses, not letting him go. Shaking him.

Reese is shaking himself.


	7. Chapter 7

FUSCO:

It's a Tuesday evening, one of the unseasonably warm days of spring, when he boards the sailboat for the first time. He keeps his expression carefully neutral as he looks around the dimly-lit cabin, quietly taking in the clutter. Scattered clothes among boxes. Books. An unzipped duffle bag.

Stepping past the galley, Fusco notes the empty take-out cartons, the paintbrushes in the sink. Paint cans among beer cans, liquor handles littering dusty corners. Dirty dishes are piled on the one-rack oven, the three-burner stove. An old radio plays static classic rock.

In the rear of the boat, below, a makeshift sleeping area: a ratty sleeping bag piled on an old mattress. Threadbare pillows.

Fusco turns, pushing at a shuttered style wooden door. Eyeing the small bathroom: a toilet and a sink with a foot pump. He looks back to Reese.

"You live here," he says finally.

Reese had been waiting patiently; he hangs one arm above his head, fingers wrapped loosely around on a rail that Fusco assumes was installed for rough seas. If such a boat were to survive calm waters long enough to ever see rough seas.

"I'm fixing it up."

"Yeah?" Fusco scans the disarray of the small living quarters again and looks back to Reese. "When do you start?"

Reese stares back at him, deadpan. The corner of his mouth twitches.

"Very funny."

They sit on the bow later, feet dangling above the water. The sun is setting, the red and orange burning low in the horizon. It's breezy, but not cold, and neither wears a jacket.

He talks, more than Reese; he feels the need to fill the silence. To fill the anger and the frustration and the wave of relief that somehow all battle in the tightening ache of his chest wall.

He talks of the panic in the city that day. The aftermath in the weeks to come. Detective Riley's memorial service, the changes at the precinct. The numbers. Shaw. He stops there, glancing at Reese's stoic profile. The silence hangs.

He switches gears.

"By the way. That old bat that works here. Berta? Gerta?"

"Greta."

"Yeah, that one. Greta. She has it in for you, y'know. Told us to check out the new guy. The tall, dark, and ragged one."

Silence. Lapping water.

Fusco glances at Reese and then squints at the horizon.

"This is pretty unoriginal, you know. The whole, withdrawing from the world thing."

Still silence.

Reese is staring off, across the water, at the distant flecks of light in the distance. Glittering buildings coming bright as the sky darkens. Fusco isn't even sure if he's even _there_ , if he's even listening. He glances around the marina, the sparsely occupied slips. Back to the weathered boat beneath them.

What was Reese even doing here?

Reese blinks and turns his head, and Fusco realizes he's asked the last bit aloud. He opens his mouth to smooth it over, but can't find his next words before Reese looks away, shaking his head slightly. Gaze back across the expanse of river.

Other than a slight tightening of his jaw, his expression remains the same.

"Look-"

"Do you ever, just, stop," Reese interrupts quietly, eyes still focused in the distance as he speaks a full sentence for the first time since they were inside, "and wonder how the hell you even wound up somewhere?"

Fusco shakes his head, letting out a hoarse laugh.

Reese looks at him.

"Every damn day," Fusco admits, and Reese gives him a small smile.

* * *

HAROLD:

Opening night. Mingling aficionados under bright lights. Passed hors d'oeuvres and champagne, the dim murmur of conversation.

Grace looks stunning, green dress against auburn hair, a delicate pendant falling just right at her collarbone. He'd given it to her seven years ago. Right before the engagement. The ferry.

He glances at her left hand, her slender fingers wrapped around the stem of a champagne flute, pale and bare. He's yet to ask her of the ring-how often did she wear it, after? Does she carry it with her, or does it sit in a drawer somewhere, gathering dust.

Would she wear it again?

"I can't tell if these paintings represent joy," a voice says behind him, "or the melancholy."

Finch starts, and pivots himself awkwardly, momentarily taken aback. He's relieved to learn the comment isn't posed to him, but rather to one of the gallery's curators, who stands just to his left. His heart rate slows.

There was a time he would have enjoyed such a conversation. The thought of it currently exhausts him.

"Harold?"

"Yes?" he answers, pivoting back, relieved. Grace, with a sparkling smile and two glasses of champagne.

She hands him one and he raises the flute in a toast.

"To your undoubted success."

She flushes, but clinks her glass to his and leans in closer at she takes a sip.

"Sold three," she admits, and he can hear the pleased smile in her words, in the whisper against his ear.

* * *

SAMEEN:

She gives it a week and three numbers before she visits Reese again.

It had rained earlier but skies were clear again. She's nursing a lacerated right hand and a sour mood. The last number was a failure, and though not on her part (even she will admit) it still makes her tense and unhappy.

She brings Bear this time, who forgets _blijf_ and _volg_ and _stay_ and _heel_ with one whiff of his long lost master. So Shaw drops the leash in compromise and then curses at the timing: Reese is turning, revealing white streaked hands and an open can of a marine strength paint at his feet, some random street urchin next to him with splatters all over his tiny person.

"You're gonna get-"

It's too late. Reese is on his knees, hands in fur, Bear wriggling and wagging and whining around him. The shepherd crouches low to the ground, and Shaw wouldn't be surprised if he peed right there on the dock.

" _Bear_. Hi, Bear. Braaf… braaf."

"-paint on him."

Shaw finishes the sentence in a mutter, but Reese is grinning. Actually grinning, and for a second she doesn't care about how one would remove paint from a dog's coat.

"This is Bear," he's telling the kid, whose sticky fingers sink into the soft fur behind Bear's ears. Shaw frowns down at them and the kid looks over his shoulder at her, frowning back.

"Who're you?"

Shaw is asking the same question, but she might have said, "Whose are you," instead and given Reese a suspicious glance.

"That's Russ," Reese says, not looking up. His forehead is pressed to Bear's and he's whispering something she can't hear.

"Hi, Russ."

"Hi." The boy seems equally suspicious of her. "What happened to your hand?"

"Nothing," Shaw says, and Reese is on his feet now, the maneuver stiff, giving her a curious frown of his own. "Number," she says, to him, and then to Russ, "Shouldn't you be at school?"

"Shouldn't you be at work?" the child counters boldly, but when she stares him down he sucks in his bottom lip slightly and looks back up to Reese.

Reese is staring at Shaw. He blinks, then shakes his head. He looks down at Bear, who is sitting at attention, gaze locked on him, completely still except for a soft swishing of his tail.

Shaw can't help but feel a little shafted.

"We're done," Reese says, and wipes his hands down the thighs of his already stained jeans. He gives Russ a gentle push and goes to pick up the paint can. "Thanks for the help, buddy."

Russ huffs. He glares at Shaw through squinted blue eyes, clearly blaming her for the interruption of whatever child labor laws Reese is breaking (he slips the kid a ten dollar bill and pushes at him again with a "Scram").

"Nice," she says to Reese.

Reese ignores the comment. He's staring at the boat, hands on his hips, quiet. Shaw scrutinizes it with him; she's not sure if it looks better or worse for their efforts.

She clips Bear's leash back to the dog's collar. "She's a beaut," she says, unable to keep the sarcastic tone out of the words.

Reese snorts and shakes his head again. As he cleans up, she snoops around until she hears him hammering shut paint cans. She squats down and swings her legs over the side of the boat.

He's taken his hat off; he runs white-streaked fingers through his hair and then pulls the cap back on. He looks tired. "Wanna grab a beer?"

She shrugs.

Never mind that it's mid afternoon and she can tell he's already had one or two today.

She could use a drink.

He knows a place nearby, he says. And there's someone he's been meaning to catch up with.

* * *

HAROLD:

On a day where the sky is too blue and the sun is too bright, Finch tries to say goodbye.

His heart is heavy as the Machine directs him to the sites. Root first.

It's eery, having her in his ear and under his feet, all at once. The flat headstone displays only _050313_.

"May third, twenty-thirteen?"

" _I thought she'd like that._ " There's a smile in her voice.

Finch tries to recollect. May of 2013. Decima.

It strikes him then: "She and John…"

They had both had God-mode. For the first time, Root was her voice.

" _Yes._ " The Machine sighs. " _She was so much more than an analog interface_. _She was so much more..._ "

It seems that even she is at a loss for words.

Finch stares at the six numbers at his feet. He thinks of Root's evolution: the adversary he'd first encountered, the enemy; the loyal friend he was saying farewell to now. And through it all, her never wavering, almost religious devotion to the Machine. His Machine.

"Thank you," he whispers. And as he's leaving, "I'm so sorry."

It's a military gravestone. Upright. Grey marble.

He stares down at it, swallowing, forcing back memories. The John he'd first met, homeless and adrift, coming to life with the numbers. With purpose. So persistent in getting to know everything he could about the Machine. About him.

He shakes his head, smiling wistfully.

"You always said you were on borrowed time," he murmurs.

But even still, even _knowing_ that, it was hard to accept that time had finally expired.

That it had been in a trade for his survival.

"Oh, John," he says, the name coming out in a choked whisper.

Finch closes his eyes, suddenly filled with a paralyzingly grief.

How could one even begin to pay their respects to that?

When he opens his eyes, the gravestone blurs before him. He removes his glasses, wiping his eyes and blinking quickly. He sets the spectacles back on his face, adjusting them back on his nose and reading the engraved marble again.

 _John Talon_.

But…

He frowns.

"But that isn't…" Finch trails off.

" _John's name? No_."

Finch frowns again, his stomach rolling slightly. "Nor Riley's…"

" _No."_

Suddenly confused, Finch takes an awkward step backward. He scans the neighboring headstones, landing again back on the one before him.

"I'm afraid I don't understand…"

The Machine is quiet.

He had imagined John's real name to accompany his final resting spot. There was no reason the stone should read _Talon_.

Bewildered: "Is John even buried here?"

The Machine is quiet.

"Where," Finch presses sharply, his voice rising slightly as he feels a slight hysteria build in his chest, a dizzying confusion, "is John buried?"

There is a painfully long pause.

" _He's not_."

* * *

JOHN:

Walking down another avenue, he turns onto the next street. His steps slow at the intersection.

Two blocks more. Circling back. He passes a liquor store, a bodega with paper wrapped bouquets outside.

He slows again.

"You lost, Reese?"

Shaw sounds amused, but he's starting to feel exactly that.

"I swear it was right around here." He comes to a stop, frowning.

Shaw pauses next to him. "Well, what was the name of it?" She pulls out her phone, raising her eyebrows when he stares at her blankly. "Seriously?"

He realizes he has no idea.

"Mike's," he tries, not sounding convinced even to himself.

"You made that up," Shaw says, "but if it's a pizza place, a bistro, or a noodle house- none of which are even in this neighborhood-"

"Dammit," he mutters. He shakes his head.

He struggles to recall the nights at the bar. The conversations with Mike. He'd drank a lot, yes, but he never-

"Beer is beer. We passed three bars back there."

"That's not it." Reese leans into his right leg, the left beginning to ache from the trek. He looks at Shaw, suddenly feeling a little dizzy. "Look, you know what, forget it. I don't really feel like company anyway."

Being with Shaw, with Fusco: it was beginning to be a painful reminder of who he'd lost.

"Seriously?"

Reese ignores the annoyed tone, and with another painful shift in his stance, he makes up his mind.

He holds out an open hand toward Bear's leash. "Can I take him?"

Shaw stares.

"Shaw."

"Thought you didn't want company."

"Sameen," he says, in a _come on_ tone, and she rolls her eyes. He opens and closes his hand, growing impatient.

There's an awkward pause.

She gives him the leash, albeit reluctantly. "You have to feed him."

Frustrated, not at her, but frustrated all the same, he lashes out with, "He's _my_ dog, Shaw," and turns away, not waiting for her response.

He's _Finch's_ dog.

He holds the leash tightly in his fist as he walks, not looking back.

* * *

 _A/N: For anyone still with me, thank you. I know it's hard to stay immersed in a story's world when said story is updated so infrequently. Thanks for being sports and sticking with it._


	8. Chapter 8

JOHN:

Reese is sanding. Around and around, bare hands and coarse grit paper, working out splinters in the deck, the flecks of old paint. He works with his left hand, arm burning from the repetitive motion, and doesn't look up when Russell suddenly asks, "What's a number?"

Reese keeps scraping.

The second time Russell tries, he hangs off Reese's shoulder for emphasis, incumbering the work.

"John."

"A numeral."

"No, a _number_."

"Pretty sure," Reese replies, pausing mid-scrape and rolling his shoulder. He leans back on his heels and raises a single eyebrow as Russell shuffles in front of him impatiently. "What grade are you in?"

Russell lets out an exasperated breath. His shorts and legs are covered in flyaway paint chips, his cheeks flushed from the little bit of scraping he had participated in. His work gloves are too big; they start to fall off his hands when his arms hang at his sides.

"Johhhhn."

Bear rises from the corner and noses the boy's hands with a soft whine. For a minute the question seems forgotten, the dog receiving full attention.

Silence. Reese resumes sanding.

"When I asked your friend about her hand, she said a number."

"Did she?"

Russell is not happy with this. "John!"

Reese stops again and sits back.

"A _number_ ," Russell emphasises, as though he wasn't clear earlier.

Reese hears a sharp whistle from across the marina: Russell's father.

His boss.

"You've been summoned," he tells the kid, starting back at the decking; the conversation is done. He tries his right arm for a minute and then switches back to his left. He shrugs his shoulder again, this time to roll out the ache.

When he pauses and looks up, Russell is still standing right there. Staring at him.

Stubborn little-

Reese tosses aside the sander and gets to his feet.

"Are numbers people?"

"Maybe," Reese allows, grabbing Russell under the arms. Hoisting him over the side of the boat and onto the dock below. He lets the kid catch his balance before stepping back.

Looking up at Reese, Russell nods, thinking it over. "Only people hurt people," he reasons.

Reese tilts his head to the side. He considers Russell for a second and then shakes his head.

"Don't keep your dad waiting."

* * *

FUSCO:

"And then Marcus passed it to me, and _pow_! _Score_!"

Fusco chuckles, steadying a glass on the table in defense to Lee's sweeping gesture. "I know, buddy, I was there, remember?"

"Yeah." Lee grins through a mouthful of cheese pizza. "I know. It was awesome."

Returning the smile, shaking his head. Watching Lee score the winning goal was pretty awesome.

"You must take after your old man," Fusco tells him. He raises his glass in toast. Lee rolls his eyes and then crosses them as he picks up his own glass, blowing through the straw until bubbles of Coca Cola threaten to spill over. "Clearly."

When Fusco glances at his watch, Lee quickly scrapes his chair back.

"Just a little more?"

Fusco hesitates. It's a school night.

"Please, dad?"

"Twenty minutes." Lee grins and races off to the arcade games.

Fusco leans back in his chair, sipping his own soft drink and keeping Lee in his general vision. Skee-ball. He reaches for the last slice of pizza and finds an empty plate.

"Hey, Lionel."

Looking up. "Seriously?"

Shaw smiles through a mouthful of cheese and crust. He makes a face.

"That's rude, you know that?"

She swallows. "No toppings?"

"Seriously?"

Fusco watches her as she drops into Lee's abandoned seat, staring across at him, elbows on the table as she takes another bite.

He scans the arcade for Lee as she chews. Still skee-ball. He looks back at her. The pizza slice half devoured in her hands. He shakes his head.

"You know I didn't invite you, right?"

"That's okay. I don't need an invitation."

"Yeah. I should know that, huh."

There's a silence between them.

He looks to Lee. Still skee-ball.

Shaw reaches across for some French fries and he gives her a look. She ignores it.

Fusco sighs, leaning back in his chair. "How's Operation You-Know-Who?"

"I haven't tried," she says bluntly, and he just looks at her. "What."

He gives her a stare. _What_?

She rolls her eyes, but there's a tightening to her jaw. "Look," she says. "I just don't… He's not ready."

"Ready?" Fusco repeats. "Sameen. He's sitting in a boat, drinking, hoping to cross someone who'll end for him as a favor. If he doesn't do it first."

"That's a little exaggerated, don't you think?"

Fusco just stares at her.

She huffs a breath. "He's _fine_ , Lionel."

"We could use his help."

"We're _fine_." She takes another bite of pizza, this time a little aggressively. Fusco frowns.

"You okay?"

Lee interrupts any response she might have had. "-Dad!"

Fusco braces the drink glasses instinctively.

"Oh, hey," Lee says, a little quieter, almost shy when he see Shaw at the table. He recovers quickly. A routine fist bump. "High score," he boasts to her brightly.

"Psh," Shaw remarks. "For you, maybe."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"I can beat you any day!"

"Bring it, punk."

Fusco watches the exchange in amusement. It wasn't long ago that Lee had equated Shaw's presence to something bad about to go down at any time, and the relaxed banter was a welcome change.

Lee races away to choose the competition medium as Shaw stuffs the last of the pizza crust in her mouth.

"Ten minutes," he tells her.

She rolls her eyes. "Whatever, dad."

* * *

HAROLD:

"I'm not sure I understand."

" _Oh, Harry."_ The Machine sighs. " _I would do anything you wanted. And you wanted a fresh start. With Grace._ "

Finch stares straight ahead, his hands trembling around a cup of tea he'd ordered and let turn cold. Through the cafe window, dozens of strangers stream by every second. Every minute.

" _After some thought I respected your wishes... to move on. To have the life you'd desired for so long. Without the numbers. Without… me."_

A pause.

" _Was I mistaken?"_

No, not mistaken.

Not entirely.

"No," Finch says, and then lets out a little huff of a hysterical laugh. "I just…"

Of all the people outside; somewhere, there was one.

"How."

There's a heaviness in his chest now, a different weight than all the past months.

" _You can thank Odette and Vasily Mikhaev."_

Finch frowns at the unfamiliar names.

And then, it hits him.

"Ms. Groves."

" _Yes. Let's just say, she had contingencies."_

Finch takes a sip of the cold tea. Cup echoing against saucer as he lays it back in place.

He stares through the window. Minutes pass.

"Where is he?"

There's a pause.

" _I can postulate two likely neighborhoods. He's been… elusive."_

At that, Finch's mouth quirks slightly. "He's avoiding you."

The Machine hums in an almost human hesitation.

" _I was respecting your wishes, Harry. To do so… well. Human nature is to make assumptions."_

Through the cafe's large windows, the blur of pedestrians swims in his vision. Finch steeples his fingers around the tea cup.

"Find him."

* * *

JOHN:

Tinny classic rock fights static as he comes to. Lifting his head up from his arms, he's groggy. Disoriented.

He stares at the empty whiskey tumbler in front of him, blinking down at it and then back up at the familiar white-haired man before him.

His voice is gravelly as he says, "Mike?"

"Johnny. Been awhile."

Reese reaches for the glass in slow motion, feeling tired and dull. Keeping his eyes on Mike and frowning, squinting slightly.

"Was starting to think you'd gotten it together."

At this Reese's frown deepens. "What?"

Mike tilts his head, thought lines appearing between his grey eyebrows. Considering him.

The bottle of whiskey is within reach; Reese helps himself to another pour. Taking a quick swallow, he tries to piece together his night. Scrutinizing the room: the tin ceiling, the scarred wood of the bar top.

Back to Mike, who gives him a curious look and then snags the handle of liquor, sliding it back onto a shelf.

He tries, for a moment, to remember. He glances toward the door. Tries to collect coming through it.

The bar is empty tonight, save him.

"How'd I get here?"

Mike looks up from where he is now wiping down the other end of the bar. "What?"

Reese looks back to the door.

When he turns back, Mike is no longer there.

Reese starts to stand. He feels heavy, sluggish. The radio crackles.

A hand clamps on his shoulder. He swings around blindly.

"-John?"

Reese squints. Shaw?

He twists back on his stool, in the direction of the Mike's departure. The bar blurs in front of him and he feels a sudden rush of disequilibrium.

The shaking of his shoulder doesn't stop.

"John," she says again.

"Shaw?" He mumbles her name and pushes her off, righting himself (he's somehow lost his center). Only the stool shifts with him and he feels the loss of gravity at the same time he hears her, " _Jesus_ ," and his back hits the floor with a thud and the crash of the stool with him.

If he loses consciousness it's only for a moment; he opens his eyes and she's _still_ shaking him. Bear is licking his face and he feels underwater. Everything is slow and far away.

Shaw's face is hovering too near to his. "You were barely breathing," she says, but he's staring past her. To the tin ceiling of the galley kitchen and the near empty handle of whiskey that spins in his vision. The old radio next to the piled up dishes on the worn wooden countertop.

Beneath him, the sail boat gently rocks.

"John," she says sharply. Then, "Jesus. Do you have a death wish or something?"

He closes his eyes, feels the waves beneath him. Considering her words.

Maybe.

And then he feels suddenly sick. Pushing past her, off the floor, he makes it to the tiny bathroom just in time.


End file.
